Accommodation owners are calling on the U.K. government to crack down on brand name "hijacking" by online travel agencies.
The Bed and Breakfast Association is supporting a petition to make bidding by OTAs on a B&B or hotel’s name on search engines illegal.
The petition, started by BBA member Frank McCready, says a clause from the OTAs that is “hidden in small print” allows them to use the names of businesses and diverts enquiries away from their websites.
BBA chairman David Weston says the practice was one of five complaints the organization made to the Competition and Markets Authority in the U.K. back in July 2017.
It asked the CMA to ban online travel platforms from making bidding on a hotel’s name a “non-negotiable part” of the terms and conditions.
The BBA and wider hotel industry want the clause to be part of a “separate express agreement.”
The petition, which was created earlier this month and has about 1,700 signatures, has to get 10,000 signatures before it will receive a response from the government.
After 100,000 signatures, the petition will be considered for debate in Parliament.
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A blog post written for BBA members by Weston says: “Profits have taken a big hit for accommodation owners, employers and risk-takers as the online intermediaries grab an ever-larger share of bookings (taking their 15 to 25% cut on those), and consequently prices have been driven up for consumers, and the OTAs have been hugely enriched.
"The big two OTAs are now worth much more than the biggest four global hotel groups combined.”
Earlier this year, the CMA gained cooperation from six OTAs following its probe into elements such as “giving a false impression of a room’s popularity” and failing to display the full cost of a room upfront.
The CMA said that the online platforms had voluntarily agreed to measures such as making search results clearer, not giving a false impression of availability and displaying compulsory charges that can push a price up.
Expedia, Booking.com, Agoda, Hotels.com, Ebookers and Trivago were the “subject of CMA enforcement action” and voluntarily agreed to the changes.