You rightly point out that guests (especialy bikers) add to revenue by eating and drinking. This potential revenue is also lost with a cancellation The guest is absolved of all risk and the hotel owner faces losses. You can't put a night in a hotel room back on the shelf and sell it another time! Imagine if a large group cancelled at short notice, the hotel owner not only loses the income but they may have brought extra staff in to cope with the numbers. This actualy happened to one of our neighbours in Austria,a large group coming for a week at New Year cancelled the day before they were due to arrive. Not only did they lose the room prices and the profit on food and drink but also they had to pay at staff who had been promised work and throw away the perishable food they had bought in. They found out later that the group had booked two hotels and had made the choice as to which one to cancel based on snow conditions at the different resorts.
I could give lots of other reason why we stopped using booking.com but they are not to do with the cancellation policy. We never signed up to that policy anyway.
John
I agree with all the above. Also, even if the hotel does benefit from wet-sales, it takes quite a bit to make up for a lost room-rate.
Then you get the B&Bs who simply lose out.
I've also heard from B&B owners that people using Booking.com, don't even read the B&B T&C, as it is just a "click-click-click.... done".
I must admit to using Booking.com, especially if on business or abroad, and sympathise with the Hotel/B&B owners who are making ends meet, but get stuffed by folk using the cancellation policy for sheer convenience, with no regard for the hotelier.
Al