Big Changes in Online Travel: Transparency, Accessibility, and the Battle for Business Travelers

It was a busy week in the online travel world as evidenced by the number of our stories. Enjoy.

• Cruise Operators Prepare for Total Pricing.  The recent announcement by some of the largest cruise companies to provide passengers total pricing (inclusive of all fees) underscores the breadth of California’s recently enacted pricing transparency law.  It isn’t just hoteliers and ticket agencies that need to comply.  Rather than limiting this change to California (or more properly, California consumers), the cruise companies plan to rollout total pricing nationwide.  The announced changes will go into effect on July 1, 2024.
  
• ADA Booking Accessibility Rules at Issue in Recently Announced Marriott Settlement.  Federal prosecutors in Colorado announced last week a landmark settlement with Marriott over the booking of accessible rooms across the Marriott portfolio.  At issue were Marriott hotels’ alleged failure to provide needed detail about ADA accessible hotel rooms and the inability (prior to October 2022) to guarantee an ADA accessible room through Expedia.  As part of the settlement, Marriott has agreed, among other things, to list all of its accessible rooms through its centralized booking system, to provide details about each accessible room, to make accessible rooms available through the largest online travel agents (Expedia and Booking.com) and to allow Marriott Bonvoy members to book accessible rooms with points. The Colorado settlement agreement (a copy of which is embedded in the attached Skift article) will likely serve as a baseline for future enforcement and compliance efforts (similar to Marriott’s settlement with Pennsylvania regarding mandatory fee disclosures).  I’d encourage everyone to read it. 
  
• OTAs Make Push for Corporate Travelers.  It should come as no surprise to our readers that the largest online travel agents (those that historically have focused primarily on leisure segment) are making huge pushes to capture a portion of the corporate travel segment, particularly in the SMB arena.  This recent trend is on top of efforts by other platforms to build better managed travel platforms (booking, payment, expense management, loyalty program recognition) – in many instances bypassing legacy GDS connections. 
  
• Advocate General Questions Necessity for Parity Provisions.  In a precursor to an expected decision by the EU’s highest court, Advocate General Anthony Michael Collins suggested that Booking.com may find it difficult to prove that its controversial parity provisions are “indispensable” and “proportionate” to it maintaining its economic viability and thus exempt from EU competition law.  The preliminary opinion stems from a Dutch court case brought by German hoteliers seeking damages for Booking.com’s use of the illegal (at least in Germany) parity provisions.  Also at issue in the case is the definition of the relevant market for purposes of assessing the disputed clauses.  According to the Advocate General, the market needs to be viewed from the eyes of hoteliers and consumers (and not necessarily the eyes of the distributor).  Although not binding on the EU court, the opinions of advocate generals are often followed.