Those of us who’ve spent time in hotel distribution remember Amoma, and no one shed a tear when it disappeared in 2019. Unfortunately, the games never stopped.
For those unfamiliar with how this works, a hotel contracts with a distributor, which passes its inventory to another distributor (and sometimes another), eventually landing on websites the hotel has never contracted with, some of which may be undercutting rates or using deceptive advertising.
A new Operto report identified 1.1 million questionable ads targeting 204,000 hotels in just 31 days, with GuestReservations.com accounting for nearly half. Now the FTC is preparing possible action against Priceline over its relationship with Guest Reservations, with potential penalties that could exceed $500 million. A San Francisco lawsuit also alleges that Guest Reservations obtains hotel inventory through Priceline Partner Solutions. The real question isn’t just who’s misleading travelers, but why major distributors aren’t doing more to police where their inventory ends up. Hotels have been asking that question for years. Maybe someone will finally have to answer for it.
