The CMA monitored a range of pricing practices in the hotel online booking sector in the UK.

Update July 2017: Further to the ECN Report published on 6 April 2017, and one key finding that many hotels were not aware that Booking.com and Expedia no longer enforce ‘wide’ parity clauses or of what this means for hotels’ ability to differentiate their prices across OTAs, the CMA is taking steps to raise awareness among UK hotels of the changes.

As part of this work, the CMA has sent a “60 Second Summary” to UK hotels highlighting that Expedia and Booking.com used to require hotels to guarantee that they would not offer their rooms more cheaply on other OTAs.

Since summer 2015, Expedia and Booking.com have changed their policies and no longer impose this requirement. Expedia and Booking.com also now no longer require hotels to offer them the same or better room availability or conditions as hotels offer to other OTAs.

As a result:

• Hotels can choose to offer a lower price on other OTAs than they offer on Expedia and/or Booking.com
• Hotels can also decide to offer other OTAs better availability or conditions (such as room extras or ‘breakfast included’) than on Expedia and/or Booking.com.

Read more here.