Hotel booking sites can make it so much easier to choose a destination for a holiday or streamline a business trip, but only if the public is able to trust them. This looks like it will happen soon. Major travel websites have agreed to change the way they do business after a UK investigation found some of them were deceiving users. They have now agreed to follow a common set of guidelines. While at present they apply only to Britain, because tens of millions of people travel around the world every year, need to stay in hotels and use travel websites to find them, it is hoped that the new rules will apply elsewhere to help stem what often appear to be questionable practices being employed to book rooms.
The issues range from pressure selling, misleading discount claims and hidden charges. Almost everybody who travels falls into the traps. Some buyers are warned that other users are looking at the same hotel, giving them a false impression of a room’s popularity. In other cases, the full cost of the room is not displayed. And statements like “best price guarantee” or “lowest price” can mislead customers. What conditions must be met for companies to make such claims?
According to the new rules, hotels will now make it clearer how they are ranked after a customer has entered their search requirements, for example telling people the extent to which search results are affected by factors that aren’t relevant to a customer’s requirements such as the amount of commission a hotel pays the site. They will no longer be able to give a false impression of the availability or popularity of a hotel or rush customers into making a booking decision based on incomplete information. For example, when highlighting that other customers are looking at the same hotel as somebody else, they will make it clear they may be searching for different dates. Some sites strategically place sold-out hotels within search results to put pressure on people to book more quickly. Sites have now committed not to do this.
