InterContinental Hotels Group today certified Travelocity and Travelocity Business as its third-party distributors of hotel inventory, announced it will not certify Expedia, Expedia Corporate Travel and Hotels.com and will remove its inventory from uncertified merchant model Web sites "over the next several months," IHG said.
The move follows IHG's implementation in May of the lodging industry's most stringent set of standards that third-party Internet booking sites must meet to gain access to its inventory. IHG forbids third-party marketing practices that undercut the chain's best rate guarantees and/or identify a hotel as sold out on a given night when only the Web site room allotment is gone, among other practices
(BTNonline, April 20).
IHG senior vice president of global distribution Jim Young said the chain is committed to working with a wide variety of distribution partners, and would announce further certifications as needed, but said IHG would remove its inventory from Expedia, ECT and Hotels.com
"We continue negotiations with other online travel distributors that have made it clear they wish to work through these critical issues with us and have the best interests of our customers and hotel owners in mind, and we expect to be able to announce certification of other companies shortly," Young said. "However, we could not secure this same commitment from Expedia, Expedia Corporate Travel and Hotels.com, and we will relinquish these relationships over the next several months."
IHG previously indicated a willingness to drop its own franchisees from InterContinental-branded Web sites and the global distribution systems if they do not comply with the company's standards
(BTNonline, June 8).