DELee

Marriott's simply posting the info. It's the hotels that are charging the junk fees. And the municipalities charging their taxes and surcharges for their cut as well. Let's see if OTAs do anything.

David

WasKnown

OTAs hate resort fees too

rucksack

Right, but the benefit of a resort/destination fee (to properties) is to obscure the actual price of the stay so the hotel looks more competitive in search engines than it actually is. If booking engines show the nightly rate inclusive of taxes/fees, there’s no incentive to carve out resort fees. I expect many hotels will keep these fees in the near term simply because they already have them, but I’d guess they’ll slowly disappear over time.

I just did a spot check and most OTAs are advertising the straight-up nightly rate exlusive of resort fees. Some show the total price for the stay including taxes and fees in small font. I don’t think OTAs care one way or another whether properties have resort fees, other than that if they don’t show the lowest advetisable price, they’re going to get significantly fewer clicks from search engines/ aggregators.

WasKnown

No. OTAs hate resort fees. This is widely known. https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-...re-new-laws-do https://thepointsguy.com/news/will-o...l-resort-fees/

Expedia de-ranking hotels with resort fees https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-...ng-hidden-fees

Booking.com trying to charge a commission on resort fees https://onemileatatime.com/online-tr...y-resort-fees/

The big stand against resort fees from OTAs happened before Covid-19. They are definitely going to fight against them in some way, either by taking a commission on them or fighting to eliminate them entirely (to therefore get that priced baked into the commissionable room rate).

GUWonder

Priceline/Booking.com wanted in on getting commission money for the resort fee type scam revenue.

Expedia adjusted algorithms to lower display priority for hotels with these kind of fees.

Did either of those big OTAs sign up to be on the side of any anti-resort fee cases being advanced by some AGs, and (if so) where is that filed support evident?

Taking a commission on such scam fees is not fighting the fees. It’s wanting to ride the scam for all its worth. The big OTAs have the resources to calculate and show only pricing inclusive of mandatory fees, but why do they choose to “small print” it even when they may?

econ

Aside from the issue that points are not awarded on the resort fee component of the total rate.

WasKnown

Expedia (Expedia, Hotels.com, Trivago, Hotwire, Travelocity, etc) literally de-ranks hotels that have resort fees.

They actually went out of their way to NOT take a commission on resort fees like Booking.com did.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/hotels-resorts/expedia-search-results-hotels-with-hidden-resort-fees-display-lower

The ability of some people here to reject what the industry commonly accepts as fact here never ceases to amaze me

yule_boy

I was just doing a search on the website (Chrome and Edge) and the prices are showing room only prices. The checkbox to show rates with taxes and all fees is still there.

GUWonder

…. and this royal “the industry”.

“Did either of those big OTAs sign up to be on the side of any anti-resort fee cases being advanced by some AGs, and (if so) where is that filed support evident?” Nothing posted above addresses this question.

WasKnown

That’s just not a valid heuristic. There is no logic in this line of thinking. OTAs don’t need to sue their partners to be displeased with one aspect of the partnership. Therefore, there is no requirement to show that they are engaging narrowly your specific behavior. All that is required is to demonstrate that they are unhappy with resort fees, which should be apparent to anyone that has sat through a single hospitality conference.

When booking.com pulled their move, some hotels stopped listing on Booking.com. This was cited as a reason by Expedia for them to not follow suit. No one actually familiar with the dynamic between hotels and OTAs would suggest that OTAs would actively oppose resort fees in the way Traveler’s United did (though TU is clearly OTA friendly on some level). They will not needlessly antagonize some of their biggest partners (and many would argue Booking.com made a mistake).

But yes, Expedia (the OTA Goliath) de-ranks hotels with resort fees. That is an indisputable fact. Is it because they like resort fees? Of course not. They whine about during almost every conference panel from the past 3 years (even in completely unrelated conferences like Skift Loyalty), as even people moderately familiar with hospitality would know.

GUWonder

I didn’t ask about the OTAs suing hotels/hotel groups over these scam hotel fees. I asked if either of the mentioned big OTAs signed up to be on the side of any anti-resort fee cases being advanced by some AGs, and (if so) where is that filed support evident.

Blowing hot air and talking a good game — to appear to be consumer-friendly — for an audience at a conference or journalists isn’t an example of signing up to be on the side of any anti-resort fee cases being advanced by some AGs.

margarita girl

What about the $40-75/night they collect from guests doing award stays?

WasKnown

Like I said:

That’s just not a valid heuristic. There is no logic in this line of thinking. OTAs don’t need to engage in your narrowly defined behavior to express displeasure with resort fees. All that is required is to demonstrate that they are engaging in behavior that discourages resort fees. Expedia, again the OTA Goliath as (most) people know, de-ranks hotels that charge resort fees.

GUWonder

Whether someone thinks “it’s a valid heuristic” or not, it’s rather telling when a response is given that isn’t an answer to the question asked.

My guess is Marriott is probably fine with the properties continuing with that kind of thing as is — forever how long they can get away with it .

Airlines with their mileage programs charging fuel surcharges on award tickets unfortunately may have their equivalent with hotels doing the same scammy thing on award nights.

WasKnown

Telling of what? That they did not engage in this specific set of behavior? As far as I know, they did not. So what? The question is whether OTAs like resort fees. Where’s your response to the fact that the Goliath of OTAs open de-lists hotels that have resort fees?