Wholesaler Hotelbeds Cuts Ties to Booking Sites That Break Hotel Distribution Rules

The collapse last week of Amoma suggests that an industrywide crackdown on online travel agencies that violate hotel contracts is getting serious. For example, many hoteliers have wanted Hotelbeds to crack down on bad behavior by some agencies. The distributor of wholesale rates has responded by taking action.

A rising wave of hoteliers has been complaining that Hotelbeds — and similar companies that move hotel inventory at wholesale rates to offline sources — haven't been playing fair. They allege so-called bedbanks have routed some of the discounted inventory through online travel agencies that disguise the origin of the discounts and offer them to the public without permission.

The issue drew a spotlight late last week when online travel agency Amoma collapsed. Hoteliers had long suspected that Amoma was often repurposing their inventory meant for niche channels, such as ethnic offline travel agents, tour operators, and airline websites, and selling it to consumers online instead.

Some hoteliers argued that the spread of wholesale rates online creates a price war on search sites like Google and Trivago, pulling down overall prices.