I have been writing about Travel Law since 1977 and the last three years have been particularly exciting in terms of the developments in this expanding field of law. Recent antitrust class actions involving the travel industry have been brought by or against airlines, in-flight Internet providers, hotels, tour bus companies, ride-sharing companies and online travel sellers and have involved various types of alleged marketing misconduct such as resale price maintenance, parallel business behavior, misleading and unfair price guarantees, elimination of competitors and unfairly raising prices, substantial market foreclosures and price fixing.

Hop-On, Hop-Off Bus Tours

A popular means of exploring large cities is participating in a “hop-on, hop-off” double decker bus tour. Here, the focus is on concepts such as relevant market, competitive effects and barriers to entry as they apply to New York City's hop-on, hop-off bus tour market. Specifically, the court in United States of America and State of New York v. Twin America, Civil Action No. 12-cv-8989 (ALG)(GWG) (S.D.N.Y. March 18, 2015), approved a final judgment (and competitive impact statement) settling an antitrust lawsuit. The lawsuit arose from the joint venture of two hop-on, hop-off tour bus companies whereby they “allegedly controlled all of the most competitively meaningful bus stops on hop-on, hop-off bus tours and increased prices for riders by 10 percent since coming together in 2009. 'By eliminating the competition between them, the largest operators of New York City's iconic double-decker tour buses were able to raise prices and deprive city visitors of the benefits of a free and fair market'.” “US and NY Settle Antitrust Cases Against Bus Companies,” N.Y.L.J (March 18, 2015). The settlement provided for a payment of $7.5 million and giving up 50 bus stops in high-profile locations including Times Square and the Empire State Building.

Hotel Room Price Maintenance

In Online Travel Company Hotel Booking Antitrust Litigation, 997 F. Supp. 2d 526 (N.D. Tex. 2014), plaintiff consumers set forth “three antitrust claims which charge [hotel chains and online travel sellers (OTSs)] with [allegedly] engaging in an industry-wide conspiracy to uniformly adopt resale price maintenance agreements containing most favored nation clauses, in an effort to eliminate price competition among hotel room booking websites.” In addition the complaint alleged that defendants deceptively published “best price” or “lowest price” guarantees on their websites while knowing that “best price” was the same fixed rate offered across all hotel booking websites. In dismissing the antitrust claims the court held that “the real 'nub' of the complaint … Is Defendants' parallel business behavior which is not suspicious … Generally hotels across the industry may find that controlling minimum resale prices is the 'only feasible' way of effectuating a profitable price discrimination strategy—that is, a strategy to 'sell the same product [i.e., hotel room], costing the same to make and sell, at different prices to different consumers'.”