Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending May 9, 2025, is below. What started initially as a relatively slow week in online travel picked up as the week progressed. Earnings releases...more
Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending May 2, 2025, is below. This week’s Update features stories on many of the large online players, including first quarter earnings...more
Good Sunday morning and Happy New Year!! We are again providing a roundup of a few of the stories that we feel made the biggest impact in the online travel industry over this past year (and continuing into this year). ...more
Good Sunday morning from Seattle and happy holidays . . . Well, we definitely missed this one. Last week I wrongly predicted that we would see little near term progress on national junk fee regulation. With leadership at the...more
This week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its long-awaited Final Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees. When the FTC released the proposed rule over a year ago, the rule covered any business that offered goods or...more
Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, December 13, 2024, is below. Google and its “efforts” to comply with the DMA again garnered most of the industry’s attention. As I...more
This week’s Update features a wide variety of topics – Hopper, Capital One vacation rentals, Expedia layoffs and Hilton campgrounds....more
Over the last ten years, nearly 300 class actions have been filed against retailers across the country, alleging that they deceived customers by advertising illusory sales or unsubstantiated reference prices. Our team is...more
For those of you in the U.S. and Canada, happy Independence Day. This week’s Update features a number of important legal updates – both in the U.S. and in the EU. The next 6-9 months should prove to be interesting as the EU...more
Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Sunday, January 27, is below. This week’s Update provides updates on both DOT’s and FTC’s recent rulemaking efforts around “hidden” industry fees. Enjoy....more
Happy New Year! We are once again providing a roundup of some of the major developments and trends in the online travel industry that caught our attention this past year. Wishing everyone a successful 2023....more
This week’s Update delves back into resort fees and includes a story detailing planned future regulation of the fees by the FTC. While resort fees may not technically be an “online issue,” potential federal regulation will...more
This week’s Update features a number of important stories, including details of Tripadvisor’s official launch of Tripadvisor Plus in the United States and an important update on the 1-800 Contacts FTC enforcement action....more
Regulators are continuing to pursue enforcement action against misrepresentations that are connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. The FTC has received 71,841 fraud reports from January 1 to July 21, where total fraud loss was...more
Consumer protection concerns are a re-occurring theme in this week’s Update. Proposed Legislation Targets Resort Fees - ("House Bill Would Halt Undisclosed Resort Fees," Benzinga.com on Sep 27, 2019) This past...more
This week’s Update includes additional background information regarding the ongoing resort fee saga, which many of you requested. Enjoy....more
Following last week’s holiday break, we are once again sharing each week what we feel are the most noteworthy stories in the distribution, loyalty program and (occasionally) short-term rental fields/industries. We hope you...more
This week’s OTA & Travel Distribution Update features a variety of stories, including renewed federal efforts to legislate third-party booking engines’ disclosure requirements. Enjoy....more
This week’s OTA & Travel Distribution Update for the week ending December 22, 2017 is below. An interesting mix of stories in this penultimate Update for 2017. I hope everyone has a great holiday and successful 2018....more
This week’s OTA & Travel Distribution Update for the week ending November 10, 2017 is below. Senator Kobuchar’s recent request for an DOJ and FTC investigation into OTAs’ purportedly anti-competitive practices leads this...more
Our OTA & Travel Distribution Update for the week ending Friday, May 5, 2017 is below. - Industry To Again Focus Attention on Distribution Duopoly [OTA]. In an article last week, Bloomberg shared details from an AHLA...more