Petition · past parliament

Make "highjacking" by OTAs of a B&B or hotels name on search engines illegal

Closed 3,143 signatures

What the petition asks

Large On-line Travel Agencies (OTAs) bid on an hotels own name on internet search engines to divert enquiries to their own Platforms. It should be illegal to do this without a specific separate agreement.
As a small B&B I cannot compete with the billions that OTAs spend on web searches and am deprived of direct clients by this practice and forced to pay high commmisions (15% to 25%) which ultimately of necessity are passed to consumers. The clause hidden in small print allowing OTAs to use our names negates our own websites and internet presence and it cannot be fair to use someone's own name to divert customers. Such bidding should be by express mutual agreement only. A lot of good B&Bs will go under.

Timeline

6 Mar 2019 Petition opened for signatures
6 Sep 2019 Closed to new signatures

Key facts

Signatures 3,143
Status Closed
Opened 6 Mar 2019
Closed 6 Sep 2019

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.