Hotel booking websites: compliance principles for businesses
How to be transparent with consumers and comply with consumer protection law.
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This guidance was published prior to the unfair commercial practices provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act) coming into force on 6 April 2025. These provisions contain broadly similar prohibitions against unfair and misleading commercial practices as under the previous legislation, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs).
More detail on the legislative differences between the DMCC Act and the CPRs is available in the technical note.
For further guidance, see Unfair commercial practices.
Hotel booking websites may also find it helpful to review:
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the CMA’s guidance on fake review practices to the extent consumer reviews and/or consumer review information is displayed (in other words, information derived from or influenced by consumer reviews, for example overall ratings, ‘star’ ratings, summaries, review counts and rankings)
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the CMA’s guidance on price transparency and getting consent for additional charges when selling online
These principles explain how businesses offering online accommodation booking services must be transparent when displaying pricing information.
It covers:
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disclosing how payments affect search results rankings
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being clear about genuine price discounts
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clearly displaying total costs
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informing customers clearly about the popularity and availability of hotels
These principles are for online travel agents, search engines, big hotel groups and individual hotels offering online booking, amongst other types of business.