Duff on Hospitality Law

This week's Online Travel Update is below.  As evidenced by the number of stories in this issue, it was a busy week in the online travel world, ending with what appeared to be a distributor dogpile on competitor Hopper.  Enjoy.

• • Expedia Terminates Hopper; Kayak Joins Scrum.  Thursday’s industry headlines were dominated by news of Expedia’s termination of its hotel and vacation rental supply agreement with industry upstart Hopper (and by extension, its many white label B2B partners, including Capital One). While Expedia attributed the termination to concerns over consumer “confusion and anxiety,” Hopper and industry pundits were quick to point to Expedia’s likely growing competition concerns.  Sensing blood in the water, Kayak’s CEO, Steve Hafner, gratuitously jumped into the fray supporting Expedia’s decision to terminate.  Suppliers that rely on Expedia as their exclusive B2B distribution platform (or that are considering such a relationship in the future) must ask what such a termination might mean for them as a potentially important channel is terminated.   
    
    
  • TUI Unveils Package Offerings.  Travelers in the UK have a new (old) hotel booking option.  In June, European tour operator, TUI, known historically for its travel packages, launched a standalone platform in the UK.  By the end of the year, TUI expects to have over 30,000 hotels available on the platform for standalone bookings (together with bookings of other individual travel components).  Suppliers, it is time to review those existing tour operator agreements.     
    
    
  • Priceline Partners with Amazon for Prime Day.  While Booking Holdings has partnered in the past with Amazon to offer Amazon’s prime members discounts or other special benefits, Priceline’s partnership with Amazon to provide Prime members special U.S. Prime Day discounts is a first. 
    
    
  • Finnair Concedes to OTA Discounts.  In response to an ongoing investigation by the Swedish Competition Authorities, Finnair has agreed to no longer restrict how OTAs advertise and sell discounted flights on their websites.   Whether this decision by Finnair is instructive as to how competition authorities might view similar efforts by hoteliers (whose relationships with OTAs are considerably different than airlines’) remains to be seen.