OTAs typically have the better booking experience, greater reach thanks to infinitely higher marketing spend, and if they also have the better price thanks to member rates, mobile exclusive discounts, package rates, etc., why would anyone still book direct?

Maintaining rate parity is essential to keep those direct bookers. (The other thing is, of course, to have a really good booking engine and to invest in marketing.)

There is no evidence that in countries where rate parity clauses were outlawed, hotels actually benefitted. Hotels which don't offer rate parity will simply lose in OTA ranking, which in turn will cause revenue loss and start a downward spiral. I wonder how many will try to escape this spiral by offering override commissions... (sic!)

A lot of lobbying efforts were wasted on banning rate parity. What if these lobbying efforts had been put towards increasing use of paid time off? Hundreds of millions of vacation days are forfeited, and only a fraction of consumed vacation days is actually used for travel. If people travelled more, it would create hundreds of billions of incremental revenue and add millions of jobs.

Such initiatives are not unprecedented. Henry Ford introduced two-day weekends and 40-hour work weeks not out of the goodness of his heart but with the intention that more time off would result in greater leisure activities (which likely would result in people needing to buy a car...)

But why create new jobs when we can't even fill the existing ones?

Why not make it more interesting to work in hospitality? Maybe more paid time off could help (US Leisure & Hospitality PTO: 9 days/year). I recall in Belgium where we had a 38-hour work week, we worked for 40 hours instead. The overtime was returned as extra days off. 12 additional PTO days/year!

By the way, for European hoteliers who think the situation in the US (and other countries) doesn't matter to them, check where your guests are from...

And of course, with the rise in cost of living, from groceries to rent or mortgage, even those who have the vacation days might not be able to afford to travel.

There are a lot of bigger problems to solve in the world. Rate parity isn't one of them...