Duff on Hospitality Law

My final client OTA & Travel Distribution Update for 2016 is below. It has been a quite week in the world of distribution. Here’s to a 2017 filled with much success and happiness. Happy New Year.

Loyalists More Likely to Use Airbnb [SHORT-TERM RENTALS]. According to a December 22 report issued by Morgan Stanley, hotel loyalty program members are the most frequent users of Airbnb. Apparently, this phenomenon remains true even if you consider the fact that Airbnb users are likely to be those that travel most frequently. Just imagine what might happen if Airbnb created an effective loyalty program . . .

Our weekly client OTA & Travel Distribution Update for the short week ending December 22, 2016 is below. This week’s update is brief one.

Long-Awaited Outcome to US Airways Suit Is Finally Here [GDS]. A federal jury found last week following an 8-week trial that Sabre had restrained trade by forcing unfavorable contract terms on its supplier, US Airways, and awarded US Airways $15 million in damages. At issue were the terms and conditions contained in Sabre’s GDS contract, including the contract’s “full content” provision that required US Airways to provide Sabre access to all of US Airways’ seats. 

This week’s OTA and Travel Distribution Update for the week ending December 16, 2016 is below. This week’s Update contains an update on one important recent court decision involving OTAs.

California Supreme Court Issues a Potentially Troubling Opinion [OTA / Tax]. Although I don’t often comment on the multitude of OTA tax decisions issued across the country, I felt that the recent California Supreme Court decision finding (once again) in favor of OTAs warranted some discussion. Although the California Court, like so many courts before it, based its decision on the rather uncontroversial conclusion that the OTAs were not “Operators” (the party expressly obligated to collect the occupancy tax under the applicable San Diego Municipal Code) of the subject hotels, language found elsewhere in the decision caught our attention.

Our weekly client OTA & Travel Distribution Update for the week ending December 9, 2016 is below. Nothing too earth shattering this week, so we will keep things short . . .

Hello all,

With the new year, we plan to post portions of the OTA & Travel Distribution Updates that I prepare and circulate among our hospitality clients each week. Although the posts will be a week or two behind the initial client updates, we hope that the information will nevertheless be relevant to those of you working in the digital marketing / e-commerce / distribution world. We hope you enjoy and benefit from these new posts. Below is the weekly update ending December 2nd, 2016.

Happy Holidays everyone.