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Employment Employment

suits against Marriott Inter-
national and Hilton World-
wide Holdings, respectively,
calling the fees deceptive.
Although Booking.com
concedes that the move will
generate extra revenue for
the company, the travel site
contends that the change
primarily is intended to
push hotels and other lodg-
ing providers to be more
transparent about the total
cost they plan to charge po-
tential customers.
“We believe in complete
transparency and that the
best customer experience is
when people know the entire
cost upfront,” company
spokeswoman Angela Cavis
said. “Hopefully this will
help continue to push the
entire industry toward more
transparency and fewer sur-
prises for customers.”
Hotel industry leaders
say only a small percentage
of hotels charge mandatory
resort fees and most of them
clearly disclose the charges
before rooms are booked.
“When guests choose a
property with a resort or
amenities fee, hotels are
careful to follow [Federal
Trade Commission] guid-
ance and display fees prior
to the end of the booking
process,” said Rosanna Mai-
etta, executive vice presi-
dent of communications for
the American Hotel & Lodg-
ing Assn. A 2018 report by the
trade group found 6% of ho-
tels surveyed charge a resort
fee.
Hotels charge resort fees
with the justification that
they cover the use of such
amenities as swimming
pools, gyms and business
centers, among other facili-
ties and services. But in the
last few years, more hotels
and resorts have made re-
sort fees mandatory, charg-
ing as much as $100 a night,
even at properties that don’t
offer extras such as a pool or
a gym.
Often the extra fees are
called “facility charges,”

“destination fees” or “ameni-

ty fees.”

In addition to raising ex-

tra revenue, the mandatory

resort fees allow hotels to ad-

vertise nightly room rates

that appear to be much

lower than they actually are

when the fee is added. It

means that travel booking

sites that list hotels by order

of lowest to highest price

may give consumers the

false impression that a hotel

is much cheaper than it is

with the mandatory fee.

The FTC issued a warn-

ing to 22 hotels in 2012, say-

ing that surprising guests

with hidden resort fees is de-

ceptive and illegal. In re-

sponse, the hotels began to

list their resort fees on their

booking websites — but

often only in small print and

late in the booking process,

just before the guest is ready

to pay.

In the U.S., hotels gener-

ated nearly $3 billion in 2018

in mandatory hotel fees, ac-

cording to an estimate by

Bjorn Hanson, an adjunct

professor at New York Uni-

versity’s Jonathan M. Tisch

Center for Hospitality and

Tourism. The total repre-

sents an 8.5% increase from

2017, and Hanson predicts

such charges will continue to

rise in 2019 as hotels try to

combat increasing payroll

and real estate costs.

Resort fees generally run

between $20 and $40 a night,

although in Las Vegas,

where such fees are com-

mon, three high-end MGM

Resorts properties just

boosted the nightly resort

charge to $45 from $39, a 15%

increase.

Booking.com is the most

popular of the online travel

sites operated by Booking

Holdings, a Norwalk, Conn.,

company that also owns

Priceline, Kayak, Agoda and

other travel-related sites.

Company representatives

say they are considering

charging a commission on

resort fees in the future at

the other Booking Holdings

brands.

Travel rights organiza-

tions are pushing to have all

hotels include mandatory

fees in the advertised rate so

that price-shopping con-

sumers know what they will

ultimately pay to book a

room.

Charles Leocha, presi-

dent of the advocacy group

Travelers United, ap-

plauded the move by Book-

ing.com and said he hopes

more travel websites put

pressure on hotels to include

the mandatory fees in their

advertised rate.

“It is a move by the larg-

est hotel OTA [online travel

agency] to strike at resort

fees and take away part of

the profit that hotels are

making now without any

commissions,” he said.

Expedia, another large

online travel agency, is tak-

ing a different approach

from the Booking.com mod-

el of charging a commission

on resort fees.

Hotels that charge resort

fees will be downgraded

when the site sorts available

rooms from lowest to high-

est price, Expedia Lodging

Partners Services President

Cyril Ranque recently told

reporters for the travel site

Skift.

That means that hotels

charging resort fees won’t be

able to use a pre-fee base

rate to give an impression of

the final hotel rate.

“We believe travelers ben-

efit when they have access to

a wide variety of travel op-

tions and transparency on

what they pay for hotel

stays, including hotel-im-

posed mandatory fees,” the

company said in a state-

ment. “We continue to work

with our hotel partners to

make sure the fees they

charge are shared with us so

we can in turn clearly display

them, enabling travelers to

make informed decisions in

their hotel selection proc-

ess.”

The hotel industry fired

back at the travel sites, say-

ing they aren’t always trans-

parent about the fees they

charge customers.

“Historically, the FTC

has received a significant

number of complaints from

consumers who booked

travel through third-party

websites, and then were

charged additional fees that

were not disclosed at the

time of booking,” Maietta

said.

Among the most popular

travel sites are so-called ag-

gregator sites such as Kayak

and Trivago, which compile

a list of travel rates from var-

ious other booking sites.

They make profits from ad-

vertising, not from hotel

booking commissions.

TripAdvisor, a site that

does not collect a commis-

sion but instead directs

users to hotel websites, said

that it “believes in pricing

transparency” but does not

plan on making any changes

to the way it advertises hotel

rates.

“If the broader travel in-

dustry displays these resort

fees in their initial pricing

displays and supplier part-

ners provide us and other

distribution channels with

this data, we would also

show it as well,” the com-

pany said in a statement.

Travel websites take on hidden resort fees

TOURISTSwatch the water show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The Bellagio and other hotels that charge

guests a fee in addition to a room rate are getting pushback from some travel groups and from Booking.com.

Kent NishimuraLos Angeles Times

[Resort fees,from C1]