Online Travel Update: The New York Times predicts strong return of travel agents; experience staying at KAYAK Miami Beach hotel revealed; Expedia settles false advertising class action | Foster Garvey PC

This week’s Replace supplies a number of updates on tales we featured beforehand, together with particulars on Expedia’s latest settlement of false promoting claims that we first detailed again in 2016. Get pleasure from.

The Return of (Offline) Travel Agents
(“Make Means for the Journey Brokers. Once more.,”April 14, 2021 by way of New York Occasions – World Enterprise) (subscription could also be required)
“E book me now. E book me something.” Final week, The New York Occasions featured a narrative predicting the sturdy return of journey brokers. Based on Wendy Burke, Founder and CEO of Cadence, a Southern California journey company, vacationers are calling her company asking her brokers to e book them journey to only about anyplace as the potential vacationers wait the necessary quarter-hour following their COVID-19 vaccine. Different businesses report that enterprise is up 35 p.c over pre-pandemic (2019) ranges. Does this imply a return to “regular” for conventional (offline) brick and mortar journey intermediaries? Whereas vacationers could talk with their brokers a bit otherwise now (texting, on-line interfaces, and so forth.), vacationers making an attempt to navigate the myriad of COVID journey restrictions are counting on their trusted journey advisors now greater than ever.

Kayak Hotel Update
(“What a Keep at Kayak’s New Miami Seaside Resort Revealed, April 15, 2021 by way of Skift Journey Information) (subscription could also be required)
What’s a keep on the first resort powered by metasearch web site, Kayak.com, like? Skift discovered final week. As you may learn, Skift’s expertise was like another new resort opening expertise – just a few hiccups are to be anticipated (e.g., lacking hand towels, moist toilet flooring, and so forth.). In the end, friends of the Kayak Miami Seaside can count on “touchless” digital kiosks, encrypted wi-fi, text-only communications with resort workers (no telephones in visitor rooms), Apple powered TVs, and so forth. Will these largely tech-driven options be sufficient to actually differentiate Kayak resorts from its opponents – both for friends or the resorts’ homeowners? It is a story we’ll proceed to comply with.

Expedia Settles False Advertising Class Action
(“Expedia Settles False Promoting Class Motion with Resorts, April 9, 2021 by way of Courthouse Information)
Again in 2016, we featured a narrative detailing claims introduced by the homeowners of the Buckeye Tree Lodge and Sequoia Village Inn in a California federal district courtroom in opposition to Expedia and its associated firms. Our preliminary description of the claims is beneath:

A lot has been written this week in regards to the class motion filed in California federal district courtroom by the homeowners of the Buckeye Tree Lodge (on behalf of the Buckeye and different equally located resort homeowners) in opposition to Expedia and its numerous firms – Resorts.com, Trivago, Orbitz, and so forth. The grievance consists of quite a lot of attention-grabbing factual allegations:

• Though the Buckeye will not be an Expedia member property, Google searches for the Buckeye return quite a lot of paid adverts by Expedia firms that includes the Buckeye.
• Customers who click on by way of the Expedia adverts are proven a list on the Expedia web sites that includes the Buckeye and advised that the Buckeye is bought out Customers are then inspired to discover Expedia member properties much like the Buckeye. The Buckeye property itemizing on Expedia includes a cellphone quantity that when dialed doesn’t take customers to the Buckeye, however as an alternative to Expedia operators who then suggest reserving Expedia members’ properties as an alternative. This isn’t the primary time that Expedia has been accused of this habits.
• Customers who exit the Expedia web sites with out reserving are then proven repeated adverts on Fb and Twitter that includes the Buckeye.

The grievance asserts quite a lot of false promoting, false affiliation and trademark claims, together with violations of each federal (Lanham Act) and state legislation (California’s Enterprise and Professions Code), and customary legislation tortious interference. Not surprisingly, Expedia has stated little in response of the much-publicized declare, however is dedicated to look into the factual allegations.

Information of a settlement of the claims (which in the end fashioned the premise of a category motion in opposition to Expedia in search of injunctive reduction) was launched round over per week in the past. A replica of the settlement is offered right here. Dealing with an upcoming trial on the deserves of the resort homeowners’ claims (after unsuccessful efforts by Expedia to dismiss the claims), Expedia in the end agreed to pay the resort homeowners’ legal professional charges ($2.1 million) and to undertake a collection of corrective measures, together with (a) guaranteeing that properties with which Expedia (or any of its third-party reserving channel companions) doesn’t have a contract don’t seem on the Expedia websites as unavailable, (b) promptly eradicating from its websites any property with which Expedia (or its reserving channel companions) doesn’t have a contract and (c) guaranteeing that Expedia’s SEM, search engine marketing and social media promoting don’t determine non-participating properties, except the properties are themselves points of interest. Expedia’s commitments will stay in impact for 3 years.