ORLANDO Walt Disney Parks & Resorts will begin offering hotel guestrooms on Priceline.com later this month, reversing a longstanding refusal to work with the online travel agency famous for making the opaque pricing model mainstream.
However, Disney will only offer inventory through Priceline’s conventional booking engine; Disney guestrooms will still be kept off the “Name Your Own Price” section of the website. “We are not participating in Priceline.com’s ‘Name Your Own’ service and have no plans to do so,” a Disney spokeswoman tells Orlando Sentinel.
Disney has listed with Priceline rivals and Expedia and Travelocity since 2002. However, Disney executives viewed Priceline as more of a cut-rate site and worried that its presence there would undermine its brand. Plummeting occupancy rates—third quarter occupancy fell 8.8% year over year—seem to have outweighed brand integrity concerns, however.
Disney has sold theme-park tickets through Priceline for four years, according to the Sentinel.