Duff on Hospitality Law

This past week (the unofficial end to summer for many of you) was a relatively busy one in the world of online travel. Highlights include:

• • EU (Unofficially) Kills Booking Holdings’ Planned Purchase of eTraveli.  For weeks now, we’ve been providing updates on Booking Holdings’ planned purchase of air booking platform, eTraveli.  While the European Commission has until September 27 to issue its final ruling, sources indicated late last week that the Commission was prepared to veto the purchase.  Sources close to Booking have stated that Booking plans to appeal any final veto.
    
    
  • Add Sonesta to the List of U.S. Hotel Companies Being Sued Over Resort Fees.  Last week Hyatt, this week Sonesta.  According to Travelers United, the consumer advocacy group that brought both the Hyatt and Sonesta class actions claims, more lawsuits against more companies are coming.  This latest suit against Sonesta focuses both on Sonesta’s alleged failure to provide total pricing (rate and mandatory fees) early in the booking process and Sonesta’s combination of taxes and fees in later disclosures.  As the list of hoteliers implementing total price on their websites and mobile applications grow (see additional story on Hyatt, Marriott and MGM changes), it will be interesting to see how these lawsuits evolve. 
    
    
  • Delayed Payments Leads to Hungarian Investigation of Online Booking Industry.  Last week, Hungary’s Competition Authority announced the launch of an accelerated inquiry into the online booking industry, and in particular, whether competition among industry members may have been distorted by Booking.com’s payment platform’s delayed payments to accommodation providers.  According to local news stories, Booking.com was several weeks delayed in making payment to multiple accommodation providers in the month of July – after announcing and then missing a series of promised payment deadlines.  July payments were ultimately made by mid-August.  The largely unexplained delay resulted in 28 complaints being made to the Competition Authority alleging the wrongful withholding of fees.