The tides are quickly turning when it comes to hotel companies better disclosing resort fees in their nightly rates.
25.08.2023 - 15:03 / skift.com / Dennis Schaal
The State of Texas filed a lawsuit against Booking Holdings, alleging that it violates state law by marketing hotel rates in a deceptive manner because it doesn’t include a variety of fees when it initially displays room prices.
“Consumers who use Booking websites to search for and compare prospective hotel accommodation options by price in accordance with the daily room rate are misled because the price advertised does not include the mandatory fees that are subsequently added during the purchase process,” the lawsuit said. “Furthermore, Booking’s actions place hotels and other competitors that include mandatory fees in the price initially advertised for hotel rooms at a competitive disadvantage.”
The lawsuit, filed in District Court in San Antonio Thursday, seeks a temporary restraining order, and then a permanent injunction and civil penalties. The Texas lawsuit came as the Biden administration and Congress take a look at the impropriety of a variety of “junk fees.”
Earlier this month, Skift CEO Rafat Ali spoke out about junk fees in the travel industry:
You can read his open letter here.
The lawsuit accuses Booking Holdings and sub-brands including Booking.com, Kayak, Priceline and Agoda, of illegally excluding a variety of resort, destination and amenity fees from the initial hotel rates they display, and also deceptively bundling “taxes and fees” with no transparency later in the booking process.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton noted in announcing the Booking lawsuit that in recent months the state sued Hilton and Hyatt for allegedly deceptively displaying their fees, and reached settlements with Marriott and Omni Hotels.
“Booking thwarts comparison shopping across different websites because its websites deceptively fail to present the total room cost upfront, whereas certain of its competitors operate transparently,” the Texas lawsuit against Booking stated.
For example, Marriott.com displayed a room at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa for a June 28 stay at a $465 nightly rate, and the hotel chain explicitly mentioned that the price included a resort fee, the lawsuit said. However, Booking.com showed the same room on the same night at $409 with no mention that the hotel would charge a resort fee, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleged that Booking’s practices violate the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Booking Holdings didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The tides are quickly turning when it comes to hotel companies better disclosing resort fees in their nightly rates.
Yet another U.S. hotel company faces a lawsuit about disclosing mandatory resort fees. Sonesta, which runs more than 1,200 hotels under various brand flags, faces a class-action suit in Washington, D.C., over how it displays its resort fees on its website and app.
Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, August 30. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
Hyatt, Marriott, and MGM Resorts have been hit with lawsuits since 2019 over how they disclose mandatory resort fees. The companies have since changed how they disclose resort fees on their websites and apps.
Travelers United’s choice to sue Hyatt over its “junk fee” practices fits into a broader storyline about travel junk fees being in the limelight ever since President Joe Biden referred to travel fees in his 2023 State of the Union address.
Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, November 3. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
The short booking travel booking windows that became the predominant mode of booking in the pandemic — for obvious reasons with lots of uncertainty around Covid & travel plan — are holding strong and in fact increasing in the 0-21 days window, according to the latest quarterly data from Expedia Media Solutions.
In Skift Research’s latest report check in on the current state of Expedia Group and Booking Holdings, the big two online travel agencies in the U.S. and Europe, as they recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
At various junctures during the pandemic, Booking Holdings faced difficulties because of the weakness of the euro and China’s shuttered borders but now stands to make strides because of favorable foreign exchange trends and China’s travel reopening.
Booking Holdings has an answer to critics, who over the last few years mused that its best days were behind it, and that online travel agencies generally would be hard-pressed to rekindle the growth of yesteryear.
A research report found that Expedia Group has lost global hotel market share since the onset of the pandemic, and all of it has come from plunging business at non-core brands, such as Hotwire, eBookers, Orbitz and Travelocity.
Tour operators need to make serious inroads into tech adoption to capitalize on the forced digital offshoots created by the pandemic. A Skift 2023 Megatrend forecasts that the global tours and activities software market is set to skyrocket, with a projected value of $1.2 billion by 2026.