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As information technology progresses, Internet-enabled hotel distribution channels are replacing the traditional ones. Among such intermediaries, Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) play a crucial role in the hotel distribution. The recent economic crisis, coupled with the rise of social media has generated the interesting phenomenon of Daily Deals (DDs), which has quickly established itself as a discounted distribution channel among customers and hoteliers (Berezina, Semrad, Stepchenkova, & Cobanoglu, 2016). Despite this, the research relating to the impact, the use and the nature of the DDs is extremely limited, often marketing-oriented, anecdotal and in need of further theoretical and empirical elaboration (Sigala, 2013).

This paper seeks to fill this gap by looking at the hotel industry as a whole, as opposed to the majority of related studies that either use customers, or a single hotel as a unit of analysis. It aims to inform about the various functions that DDs assume in tourism distribution from the perspectives of tourism economics and strategic management, using the wellestablished SCP paradigm as a framework of operationalisation.