PRICING TECHNOLOGY Travel booking sites ‘misleading’
consumers over pricing TRAVEL BOOKING AND PRICE COMPARISON SITES are ‘misleading’ customers with inaccurate information, the European Commission has said. An investigation by the Commission and EU Consumer Protection (CPC) watchdog found 235 of 352 checked sites were “not reliable on prices”. It found that additional price elements were added at a late stage of the booking process without clearly informing the consumer. Also, promotional prices aren’t available when people ‘click-to-buy’.
HOTELS UK hotel rates in decline
MAJOR UK CITIES HAVE SEEN A DECREASE IN HOTEL RATES for the first quarter of 2017, data from HRS has shown. Liverpool has seen the biggest drop (-14.3%), followed by Bristol (-11.7%) and Leeds (-10.7%), when compared to the same quarter in 2016. London showed a small decline from last year with only Reading seeing the same rates, remaining at an average of £103 a night. In Ireland it was a different picture, with the top three cities seeing increases. Cork saw the largest rise (29.1%) in average rate per room night. Zurich remains the most expensive city in Europe (£149). Bargain travellers looked to Prague, where the average cost for the night was £57. In contrast, Istanbul’s average prices for hotel overnight stays fell by -6.3% to £63 while Moscow saw an increase of 26.5% to £89 a night.
The Commission has warned that sites must “bring their practices in line” with EU legislation, which requires transparency over prices. The CPC also found that in one- third of cases the first price shown was not the same as the final price to pay; in one-fifth of cases promotional offers were not available; in nearly one-third of cases the way the total price was calculated was not clear and in one- quarter of cases prompts on scarcity (e.g. only two left) only applied to availability on that particular website, which wasn’t made clear.
Malaysia Airlines first to track fleet with satellites
MALAYSIA AIRLINES IS THE FIRST CARRIER to sign up to a new satellite flight tracking service.
The new technology means the airline will be able to monitor aircraft in areas where there is currently no surveillance.
This includes polar regions and
remote areas of oceans not covered by existing systems. Most flights currently transmit their position using signals tracked from both the ground and space. The new service will be available in 2018. The announcement comes three years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board. In January, the search was suspended after years of trawling the 46,000-square mile zone west of Australia. Malaysia signed a deal with companies Aireon, Flightaware and Sitaonair to provide the technology.
CAR SALES Businesses push UK car
sales to record high FLEETS AND BUSINESSES HELPED UK CAR SALES to a record all-time high last month, as buyers look to beat the planned changes to Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) that come into force in April. According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), 562,337 new cars were registered in March, up 8.4 per cent on the same month last year – the biggest rise since data was first collected in 1976. A record number of diesel vehicles were sold in March as well as a 31 per cent rise in alternatively fuelled vehicles. From April 1 all new cars, apart from those with zero emissions, have to pay an annual flat rate charge. For other low-emission cars, such as hybrids, there is a sliding scale of charges related to CO2 output for the first year of ownership. After that time, petrol or diesel vehicles are subject to a “standard” rate of £140 a year. The SMMT said fleets and businesses were the “big contributors” to the market growth in March, with registrations up 12.6 per cent and 11.9 per cent respectively.
10 BBT May/June 2017
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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