Two leading U.S. travel industry groups, the American Hotel & Lodging Association and the Interactive Travel Services Association, are discussing terms for a sitdown over their bitter clash about ITSA's push for federal legislation that would limit online travel agencies' exposure to local hotel-occupancy taxes.
From the sound of it, perhaps President Obama should dispatch a special envoy to get the two parties to set aside differences and begin frank discussions about the dispute.
Shawn McBurney, senior vice president of governmental affairs for AH&LA, says Art Sackler, the ITSA executive director, indeed recently met with lodging association officials to discuss terms for a broader meeting to air the issues. The two sides are discussing who will attend the meeting, what will be discussed, and if ITSA will share with AH&LA the most recent draft language for proposed federal legislation, McBurney says.
Such a meeting would provide great theater as it would pit an association, AH&LA, which represents some of the largest global hotel brands, against an organization, ITSA, which counts the biggest U.S.-headquartered online travel agencies and global distribution systems as members.
The issue revolves around ITSA's attempt to pass federal legislation that might exempt the OTAs from local and state governmental efforts to collect hotel taxes on their markups from merchant model hotel sales.
CNNMoney.com reports that OTAs such as Expedia and Orbitz Worldwide were seeking to insert such federal legislation into pending economic stimulus legislation.
"They [ITSA] are trying to get their language into anything that moves," says McBurney, adding that ITSA tried to get the hotel-tax exemption into the stimulus bill last year as well as the Travel Promotion Act.
If getting hotel tax language into a jobs' stimulus bill seems a stretch, online travel companies point to a still-unreleased study purporting to show that if the hotel merchant model were extinguished by the crush of lawsuits, then the U.S. travel and tourism industry would lose $1.1 billion in revenue and 46,648 jobs.
Initially, last year, AH&LA was rebuffed in an attempt to meet with ITSA about the issue, but talks about the terms of such a parlay now are under way, McBurney says.
McBurney expresses frustration about the issue, arguing that there previously had been "no communication" from and "no discussion" with ITSA about its legislative initiatives. He adds that AH&LA doesn't even have the precise language of the most recent legislation that ITSA is proposing.
ITSA hopes to get Congress to exempt the online travel agencies from taxes on their markup and service fees -- or at least to get uniform federal legislation so the OTAs wouldn't have to wage hundreds of skirmishes and lawsuits at the local level.
ITSA spokesman Andrew Weinstein says the initiative to have Congress adopt a national regulatory and legal framework for the hotel tax issue is not solely an "online issue," but also has the backing of ASTA, the Business Travel Coalition, tour operators, hotels and a union group.
Weinstein says the framework for what a national standard on hotel taxes would look like is under discussion.
AH&LA opposes the concept of such legislation, alleging that it would put hotels at a competitive disadvantage and would "potentially subject hotel companies to massive tax increases as state and local governments seek to replace the revenue lost" if OTAs get a pass on tax obligations.
Such legislation also would whip up opposition from states and municipalities on the grounds that the federal government would be usurping their traditional taxing authority.
Supporters of the online travel agencies have not detailed what strategy or legislative vehicle they will use in their push for a national standard on hotel taxes.
Perhaps that leaves some wiggle room for the appointment of a presidential envoy to get talks going between the hotel and online travel sectors.
After all, even the Palestinians and Israelis sit down at the negotiating table from time to time.