According to a European consumer protection watchdog, about two-third of the travel booking sites, 235 websites to be precise, provide misleading information on prices.
The European Commission in its survey of 352 online travel booking and comparison services found that a third of the websites displayed initial prices that were not the final prices and in a fifth of the cases, promotional offers were not available.
With EU consumer legislation, the websites have been asked to “bring their practices in line” which requires them to be fully transparent about prices. The EU’s Consumer Protection Co-operation said that the online booking websites have to show their prices in “a clear way” right from the initial stage of the booking process, which is often much lower than the final price quoted by these sites.
Vera Jourova, commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality said that the internet provides consumers with plenty of information to prepare compare and book their holidays. However, if the reviews on comparison websites are biased or prices are not transparent, these websites are misleading consumers.
The key findings of the study shows:
- What you believe you’ll pay, is it what you will actually pay? In one third of the cases, the price first shown is not the same as the final price.
- Is it an offer or is it just bait? In one fifth of the cases, promotional offers were not really available.
- Puzzled mind or puzzled price? In almost one third of the cases the total price or the way it was calculated was not clear.
- Last cheap room in the hotel or simply last promoted room on that website? In one in four cases, websites did not specify that statements about scarcity (e.g. “only 2 left”, “only available today”) applied strictly to their own website.
