A group of major hotel booking sites have vowed to stop using misleading discount claims and high-pressure selling tactics, after the UK’s competition watchdog ruled they could prevent customers from finding the best deals and even amount to breaches of consumer law.
With 70% of people researching hotels using booking sites, CMA said it was clamping down on practices that give a false impression of a hotel’s popularity, with claims such as “one room left at this price” and “booked four times in the last 24 hours”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The CMA also raised concerns about hidden charges and commissions paid by some hotels, which affect search results.
Among the “major changes” announced by the regulator are rules to make search results clearer, end pressure selling, provide more clarity on discounts and display all compulsory charges in the headline price.
“The websites have a deadline of 1 September to make the changes or face further action,” reports The Guardian. It points out that not all of the firms are engaged in the dubious practices, but all have agreed to abide by the principles set out by the CMA.
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of hospitality trade association UKHospitality, told The Daily Telegraph the CMA’s recommendations “will simultaneously add a level of protection for accommodation businesses that have too often lost out via unfair practices”.
The BBC says “the CMA will now seek to make the rest of the sector follow the same rules as the six companies it has named”.
-
August 31 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include FEMA's new scheme, Gavin Newsom's antics, and a clue in the Epstein files
-
Disarming Hezbollah: Lebanon's risky missionTalking Point Iran-backed militia has brought 'nothing but war, division and misery', but rooting them out for good is a daunting and dangerous task
-
Woof! Britain's love affair with dogsThe Explainer The UK's canine population is booming. What does that mean for man's best friend?
-
Dentures and witch gear left at hotelsTall Tales And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
Hotel guest jailed over negative reviewsfeature And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
Woman dies days after knocking inside her coffinfeature And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
Squirrels’ reign of terror in kitchenfeature And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
Growing number of people ‘actually aliens’feature And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
Home Office worker accused of spiking mistress’s drink with abortion drugSpeed Read Darren Burke had failed to convince his girlfriend to terminate pregnancy
-
In hock to Moscow: exploring Germany’s woeful energy policySpeed Read Don’t expect Berlin to wean itself off Russian gas any time soon
-
Were Covid restrictions dropped too soon?Speed Read ‘Living with Covid’ is already proving problematic – just look at the travel chaos this week
