(Sejong = Yonhap News) Reporter Su-yeon Soo = Five companies, including Hotels.com, have set up contracts that require the lowest reservation price, and then decided to revise them after being inspected by the Fair Trade Commission.
The FTC announced on the 15th that five hotel reservation platforms, including Interpark, Hotels.com, Booking.com, Agoda, and Expedia, reviewed the terms of contracts with domestic hotels and corrected the’most-favored country treatment clause’.
The most favored country treatment clause requires that rooms not be offered on other platforms at a lower price.If multiple booking platforms put this clause in the contract at the same time, hotels cannot use promotional strategies such as lowering prices for specific platforms, and all sites have the same price. They sell accommodation products.
In December 2019, the FTC visited 16 hotels in Seoul and Jeju Island and checked the contracts they made with the reservation platform operators, and confirmed that the five reservation platforms are using the most favored country treatment clause. Among the companies surveyed, three companies, including Hotels Combine, Hana Tour, and SeaTrap, did not write contracts containing related details.
Interpark has removed all forms of the most favored country treatment clause from the contract.
Hotels.com, Booking.com, Agoda, and Expedia have eliminated the provision not to offer rooms on terms that are more favorable to other platforms, and instead replaced them with’don’t offer rooms on conditions that are more favorable at least on the hotel’s own website’. I did it. As this provision applies only to hotel websites, if a hotel sells through phone, visit, or e-mail information, it is possible to sell accommodation products at a lower price than the reservation platform.
Interpark changed the terms of the contract in March last year, and Booking.com and Agoda changed its terms in December last year, and Hotels.com and Expedia decided to revise it within 90 days.
The FTC said, “If the hotel’s own site sells rooms cheaper than the platform, the’free ride’ problem of lodging companies may arise, such as consumers only searching on the platform and making reservations on the hotel website.” “We have allowed a provision that allows us to offer products on the same or advantageous terms rather than on the website.”
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2021/03/15 12:00 sent