Hotel booking sites sign up to new standards after government probe into ‘misleading’ sales tactics 

Hotel booking sites have signed up to a new set of standards after a government probe into ‘misleading’ sales tactics.

Leading online travel bookings sites – including TripAdvisor, Airbnb and Google as well as major hotel chains, have now agreed to change how they display information where needed and have signed up to the Competition & Markets Authority’s (CMA) sector-wide principles for complying with consumer protection law.

These principles include not giving a false impression of a room’s popularity and always displaying the full cost of a room upfront.

Twenty-five organisations have signed the new pledged and most have already made any necessary changes. Accor, IHG, Hilton, Marriott, Radisson Hotel Group, and Wyndham Hotels and Resorts requested more time as they will need to introduce specific technical updates so that UK customers are always shown the ‘full cost’ of a room upfront when searching for hotels abroad. The CMA will now be closely monitoring to ensure that these firms make the required changes in a timely manner.

Today’s announcement comes after the CMA took enforcement action against 6 other companies – Expedia, Booking.com, Agoda, Hotels.com, ebookers and trivago – for serious concerns it had around issues like ‘pressure selling’, ‘misleading discount claims’ and the effect that commission has on how hotels are ordered on sites.

The CMA was concerned that some of these practices could mislead people, stop them finding the best deal and potentially break consumer protection law. All six firms formally committed to clean up their sites and have now made the agreed changes.

CMA CEO Andrea Coscelli said: “People booking hotels online can now do so with more confidence thanks to the CMA’s action. Major websites and big hotel chains have agreed to clean up their act if they’ve been using misleading sales tactics, and have signed up to sector-wide consumer law principles on how to display important information to customers. The CMA will now be watching to make sure that these major brands, used by millions of people in the UK every year, stay true to their word. We will take action if we find evidence that firms are breaking consumer law.”

If the CMA finds that any sites fail to make the appropriate changes or becomes concerned that people are being misled, it will not hesitate to take further action, the government authority said.

As well as continuing to expect all booking sites and hotel chains to abide by its sector-wide principles, the CMA is pushing for compliance with consumer protection law in the travel and tourism sector globally. As part of this, it is co-leading an international project with other consumer enforcement agencies, which aims to tackle these issues on a global basis.

The firms signing up to the new standards are:

Accor
AirBnB
Best Western Hotels & Resorts, Great Britain
Google
Hilton
HolidayPirates
HomeAway
HotelsCombined
IHG
Kayak
Lastminute
Late Rooms (no longer operating)
Marriott
Momondo
OnTheBeach
Opodo
Premier Inn
Radisson Hotel Group
Skyscanner
Travelodge
Travel Republic
Travelsupermarket
TripAdvisor
Trip.com
Wyndham Hotels and Resorts