Office of Fair Trading opens consultation on revised hotel booking commitments made by Intercontinental Hotels, Expedia and Booking.com
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has opened a consultation around online bookings offering room-only hotel accommodation by online travel agents, proposed by Booking.com, Expedia and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), following a list of proposals by the three companies being agreed.
The consultation followed a statement of objections being issued in July 2012 by the OFT which alleged that both Booking.com and Expedia had agreed separate agreements with IHG, which restricted online travel agency’s ability to offer discounted rates when it came to room-only hotel bookings.
This led to a draft of commitments proposed by the three businesses being consulted upon in August of this year, which led to hotels being allowed to offer discounts in an equivalent manner to online travel agents which were also open to those living within Europe and not just the UK, and under the new proposals will apply for a period of two years.
Ann Pope, senior director in the OFT's Services,Infrastructure and Public Markets Group, said that the OFT felt that the revised commitments would inject “a meaningful degree of price competition” when it came to online hotel bookings.
“We would now like to hear the views of interested third parties, in particular on the amendments being proposed,” she added.
Comments on the proposals will be accepted by the OFT until 17 January 2014.