Picture the scene: You secured reasonable airfare, booked a hotel near the beach, and created an itinerary of activities. As you check into your hotel, the desk clerk informs you of their daily resort fee. They explain that the fee covers WiFi, the fitness center and parking. You feel a mix of emotions — confusion, outrage, embarrassment and disappointment. You had no idea.
Unfortunately, this scenario plays out all too often. Some hotels continue to surprise their guests with “resort” or other mandatory fees in person at the check-in desk, and it’s not fair.
Policymakers have rightly focused on combating hidden fees and providing greater price transparency. Legislation like the Hotel Fees Transparency Act has been introduced in Congress to address surprise resort fees. And the Federal Trade Commission has studied the harm to consumers when the total price is not presented in their search for accommodations, and it has proposed a similar but economy-wide Unfair or Deceptive Fees Rule.
However, unless a common-sense provision is added, these efforts will hinder, not help, consumers’ access to accurate resort fee information from hotels no matter where they shop for accommodations.
The good news is that Congress, specifically the Senate Commerce Committee, has now twice passed provisions to support consumers’ access to accurate information from airlines no matter where they shop for flights. They can and should do the same for consumers regarding hotel and resort fees.
Hotels, like airlines, sell quickly expiring inventory. Before time runs out, hotels, like airlines, need to reach as many would-be travelers as possible. Hotels and airlines can sell or “distribute” their services directly to consumers or freely choose to indirectly distribute them through online travel agencies, metasearch engines, Global Distribution Systems, or travel management companies, many of which are members of the Travel Tech Association.
Association members provide access to a global customer base while offering consumers essential price comparison tools and additional information. Hotels, like airlines, set their rates, mandatory fees and policies for their services. They each upload this information into member company systems.
Travel Tech member companies then provide this information to consumers seeking price comparison tools or pass it along as inputs to other indirect distributors, like brick-and-mortar travel agents or tour operators.
But what happens if the information provided by hotels or airlines is wrong, or worse, purposefully not included?
For airlines, the Senate Commerce Committee has approved not one but two key provisions — one six years ago in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 and one just a few weeks ago in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2023. They state that companies in the indirect distribution channel cannot be held liable if the airline does not provide correct information about customer service policies or ancillary fees.
With these two simple, smart and common-sense solutions, the Senate Commerce Committee rightly keeps the onus on airlines — the very companies setting the policies and fees — to provide accurate information about their policies and fees to the millions of consumers wherever they shop for flights.
The Senate Commerce Committee should apply this same approach to the Hotel Fees Transparency Act and keep the onus on hotels — the companies setting the resort fees — to provide accurate information to consumers.
As it stands, the legislation does not require hotels to provide resort fee information to indirect distribution companies, but it would hold such companies liable if they don’t offer accurate resort fee information to consumers. Without this added provision, a hotel could post up-to-date resort fee information on its website but still not share it with indirect distribution companies where many consumers shop and book their travel.
By adopting a similar approach in the FAA Reauthorization Act, Congress can ensure consumers have access to accurate resort fee information wherever they shop for accommodations, just as they have done for consumers shopping for airline tickets.