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A crackdown by the U . S . Federal Trade Commission on 22 hotel operators may end the non-disclosure of mandatory resort fees upon booking , but the fees themselves are unlikely to go away .
The FTC investigation began when the agency heard consumer complaints about the practice in May 2012 at a conference the agency held on “ drip pricing .” The FTC contends guests staying at hotels with the mandatory fees only learned of the fees after they arrived at the hotel , after making a reservation at what they believed to be the total
room price . Others paid for the reservation in advance , and only found out after they arrived at the hotel that they would have to pay additional mandatory fees .
In November 2012 the FTC mailed warning letters to 22 U . S . hotel operators — the names of which the agency has not disclosed — that said the hotel ’ s website did not stipulate mandatory resort fees also not included in the reservation rate quoted to consumers . The investigation did not look into prices displayed via online travel agencies .
Since then , the FTC reports most of the hotel companies contacted have made the requested changes . “ Most hotel companies have already made the changes on their website or are working to do so ,” says Annette Soberats , a staff attorney at the advertising practices division of the FTC . “ Hotels should modify their online reservation websites so that any price quoted to the consumer includes any mandatory fee that is charged . That includes resort fees . Typically hotels disclose these fees in fine print and vague disclosures . Our message is that those disclosures are not sufficient .”
Hotel companies contacted by HOTELS for this article declined to comment about
8 HOTELS March 2013 www . hotelsmag . com