Over the past two decades, the digital revolution has transformed the way we travel.
It spawned new online travel agencies, comparison sites, and other independent businesses that broadened our access to the wonders of the world immeasurably, opening our eyes to new cultures and experiences, and creating memories with family and friends that will last a lifetime.
As part of this revolution, Skyscanner was founded 20 years ago in a bedroom in Edinburgh. Thanks to the internet, it became one of the first online flight search and comparison companies in the world.
Since then it has grown to employ over 1,400 people in three UK offices as well as in Tokyo, Miami, Barcelona, Singapore and Shenzhen. We now search 80 billion prices a day, helping millions of travellers discover new places.
Yet despite this vibrant expansion of consumer choice and opportunity, the UK’s digital marketplace is under threat. The very platforms, such as Google, that helped to catalyse this growth have slowly but surely morphed into gatekeepers which set the rules of the market to their own advantage and, by doing so, jeopardise the entire system.
Setting the rules: Platforms, such as Google, have slowly but surely morphed into gatekeepers
These gatekeepers prioritise their own services over others, regardless of merit or consumer preference. This unfairly limits choice, stifles competition, and puts a damper on innovation — the very lifeblood of the digital economy.
Google is one such gatekeeper. In the mid 2010s, Google launched its own travel comparison products, Google Flights and Google Hotels, and we welcomed the competition.
However, in the years that followed Google has used its control over online searches to give preference to its own products and services, ahead of competing firms. It places Google Flights options ahead of other search results, quietly diverting consumers towards its own product.
This ‘self-preferencing’ is difficult to spot, but the impact on our choice and wallets over time is very real.
Imagine nearly every supermarket in a city being owned by one company. As you enter any of these supermarkets, you are greeted with the company’s own-brand products in the prime spots and need to search the back of the store to find the best, most popular or your favourite products. Over time — something you are inevitably short of — you are less and less likely to go to the back of the store, which means you are unwittingly missing out on a vast array of products you might prefer.
And yet the only way these products can be made more visible or accessible is if the firms that provide them pay a fee to the supermarket company.
But it’s not just about visibility; it’s also about fairness and the fundamental principles of competition that drive markets to serve consumers better.
When a single entity wields disproportionate power to sway consumer choice, it doesn’t just hurt competitors. It robs customers of the full range of options they should be offered, and of better prices. And it stifles innovation.
It’s fair to say that Skyscanner would likely not exist if we had launched after 2015, given the way the system now operates. And in 2023, it is even harder for a smart entrepreneur with a bright idea to launch a new online travel company that would benefit consumers.
The Government has rightly recognised that it is unsustainable to allow a tiny number of global tech firms to set the rules for our most innovative UK businesses. It has designed a world-leading new Bill, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Bill, which will allow the UK’s globally respected regulator — the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) — to create a level playing field for all UK companies.
But we are concerned by reports that the Government is now considering making changes to the Bill, including making it easier for the gatekeepers to appeal against CMA decisions designed to create more competition and choice.
This would be a grave mistake — any change to the appeals process which encourages these firms, with their endless legal resources, to challenge and drag out every CMA decision would be unwise.
Where innovation is concerned, speed is vital — if the current gatekeepers were allowed to endlessly demand small changes to ranking algorithms or app-store terms and conditions, it could stifle promising start-up firms within weeks.
The CMA has to be able to make and enforce decisions quickly for this to be effective.
Let’s be clear — it is greater opportunity and competition that drive innovation and investment. We were fortunate that our founders had their idea 20 years ago, and had the chance to put it into action, before the rise of Google Flights and self-preferencing.
They knew that, with hard work and the right strategy, they had a fair chance at creating and scaling up a successful online company.
The Government must not let the gatekeepers pull up the drawbridge behind them — if they do, UK tech and consumers will be worse off for it.
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