{"id":72275,"date":"2016-07-13T11:00:25","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T11:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=f9af393fc195f7f3f5bfdadf72be4bc1"},"modified":"2016-07-13T11:00:25","modified_gmt":"2016-07-13T11:00:25","slug":"press-release-monitoring-project-launched-in-online-hotel-booking-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=72275","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Monitoring project launched in online hotel booking sector"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The monitoring project has been launched by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA<\/abbr>) in partnership with the European Commission and 9 other competition agencies in the EU.<\/p>\n

In July 2015, online travel agents Expedia and Booking.com changed their terms and conditions to remove certain \u2018rate parity\u2019 or \u2018most-favoured nation\u2019 requirements, which prevented hotels from offering cheaper room rates on competing online travel agents\u2019 sites than are offered on Expedia and Booking.com.<\/p>\n

The questionnaires, which use a common approach across the 10 countries, will collect information to assess how that change, alongside other recent developments \u2013 including several investigations across Europe into a range of pricing practices in the online booking sector \u2013 have affected the market.<\/p>\n

The joint monitoring work \u2013 which is expected to be completed by the end of 2016 \u2013 will enable the CMA<\/abbr>, which closed an investigation<\/a> into the sector in September 2015, and other competition agencies, to determine whether or not there is a need for any further action in this sector.<\/p>\n

The views of other hotels in the UK which have not been directly contacted are also welcome. Interested hotels that wish to participate can go to the CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s project page<\/a>, where a link to the questionnaire is available.
\nAnn Pope, CMA<\/abbr> Senior Director for Antitrust, said:<\/p>\n

\n

Consumers benefit from lower prices and better service in a truly competitive market in which hotels and online travel agents compete for their business.<\/p>\n

The CMA<\/abbr> is aware of concerns raised by a number of hotels about how this market is operating. This project is part of the CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s ongoing commitment to watch this market closely in order to ensure that consumers are benefitting from effective competition and we welcome responses to this survey, so that we can see how the market is developing in light of recent changes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Notes for editors<\/h4>\n
    \n
  1. The CMA<\/abbr> is the UK\u2019s primary competition and consumer authority. It is an independent non-ministerial government department with responsibility for carrying out investigations into mergers, markets and the regulated industries and enforcing competition and consumer law. For more information see the CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s homepage<\/a> on GOV.UK. For CMA<\/abbr> updates, follow us on Twitter @CMAgovuk<\/a>, Flickr<\/a> and LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. The other participating national competition agencies are: Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden.<\/li>\n
  3. On 16 September 2015 the CMA<\/abbr> closed its investigation into suspected breaches of competition law in the hotel online booking sector<\/a> which was launched by the Office of Fair Trading, the CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s predecessor. This investigation was one of several investigations across Europe into a range of pricing practices in the hotel online booking sector. The CMA<\/abbr> closed the case on administrative priority grounds, and did not take any decision as to whether the Competition Act 1998 and\/or Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union had been infringed. At the same time as it closed this investigation, the CMA<\/abbr> committed to monitoring developments in this market.<\/li>\n
  4. The deadline for receipt of views by the CMA<\/abbr> is Monday 8 August 2016.<\/li>\n
  5. Enquiries should be directed to Simon Belgard (simon.belgard@cma.gsi.gov.uk<\/a>, 020 3738 6472).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Hotels across the UK have been sent a questionnaire by the CMA, which is monitoring how changes to room pricing terms are affecting the market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}