Austria moves to change OTA rules

BTN News
Thursday, 14 July 2016

Austria this week launched new legislation to outlaw a travel web site practice of stopping hotels offering their own rooms at lower prices on their own web sites.


(Parity clauses in contracts between on line booking sites and hotels are common in the industry and allow online travel agents to claim they always offer "the cheapest on line rates available".)


Austria is following similar moves by France and other countries. Germany's antitrust regulator ordered Booking.com in December to scrap parity clauses.


Booking.com responded: "If you want to be sure to get the cheapest hotel price you would be forced to comb through countless homepages to in the end only be able to compare a fraction of the possible offers."

Austria moves to change OTA rules

BTN News
Thursday, 14 July 2016

Austria this week launched new legislation to outlaw a travel web site practice of stopping hotels offering their own rooms at lower prices on their own web sites.


(Parity clauses in contracts between on line booking sites and hotels are common in the industry and allow online travel agents to claim they always offer "the cheapest on line rates available".)


Austria is following similar moves by France and other countries. Germany's antitrust regulator ordered Booking.com in December to scrap parity clauses.


Booking.com responded: "If you want to be sure to get the cheapest hotel price you would be forced to comb through countless homepages to in the end only be able to compare a fraction of the possible offers."