1 / 3Muse price-checks Florence hotels vs booking direct
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Real example of Muse and the OTA risk. $BKNG $META I wanted to try what happened when I used Muse to book a stay in Florence, Italy. First it returned 5 options. The links to ALL FIVE were Booking .com listings. It did not prompt me to price check or go direct. I did prompt it to check if it was cheaper going direct. From the time I asked it to check to when it answered me 14 minutes had passed- sure I could do other things in the mean time, but if I was really in the mood to search travel, I would have realistically just gone to different sites or did the check myself. The conclusion was 2 out of the 5 listings were cheaper to go direct, with the other 3 cheaper on Booking .com. Although 1 of those was only cheaper because it was a non-refundable rate-- the refundable rate was the same as on Booking. (The one that was cheaper was because it had a special 15% discount if you stayed longer than 5 nights). So really more like 1 out of 5 was clearly cheaper going direct, 1 was a wash, and 3 were more expensive going direct. The interesting thing is people are acting like the ability to price compare and shop rates is new with Muse. Yes, I get it makes it more automatic, but a lot of travelers check the direct rate before booking. If the price is similar enough, they may still prefer to book on a better known site like Booking because of the support they expect to receive if something is wrong. But also, who books hotels like this? No pictures, no maps, no reviews. I have to trust it figured out the best one for me. It makes sense as a place to start a search (better than Google perhaps), but for me at least this wouldn't satisfy me with enough info before booking. The long wait time inbetween prompts would have compelled me onto a more traditional OTA to speed things up. I get the interface and speed can/will improve in future, but it still seems like the path of least resistance to just pull from Booking. It may keep price checking and some consumers will save money from that, but it isn't built to scrap the entire web everytime a user searches for a hotel. As Ben Thompson notes, in time they can build out their own web directory, but that still doesn't solve the live hotel inventory link. I get AI Agents are scary and they will change the world in all sorts of ways that are hard to know ahead of time. On the other hand, it is very hard for a single business to be great at everything.
Muse planned a Florence, Italy hotel search for Apr 15–26 (5 upscale Booking.com options, all under $300/night), then price-checked each against direct-booking rates — 1 clearly cheaper direct, 1 wash, 3 cheaper on Booking. Screenshots show the agent chat with hotel picks, prices, and its booking offer.
