HOTELS X ONLINE TRAVEL AGENCIES 505 Following the trio of European antitrust authorities and those in Oceania, the adoption of restrictive parity clauses represents a balance between the concerns and motives of the parties, now, opposed. On the one hand, it protects OTAs from the opportunistic behaviour of hotels and consumers to the detriment of the economic satisfaction arisen from the use of these platforms; on the other hand, hotels take liberty over their prices and commercial conditions in an environment of greater competition and consumer’s benefit. The proposals will make possible for hotels to negotiate more freely with the OTAs the commercial terms that best meet the interests of both parties, embodying the set of obligations assumed by them, which prohibits parity clauses, conditions or availability of rooms in the following situations: a) Bookings made through other OTAs and other online channels – the lodging offer sites may disclose bookings at prices freely contracted with the hotels, with no parity obligation in relation to other OTAs, but parity may be required concerning the hotels’ own websites open to the general public (to avoid hitching) and metasearch (MSS) websites, such as Trivago.com and Tripadvisor.com, which do not, in principle, match an OTA, as long as they do not allow bookings; b) Bookings made through an online channel not accessible to the general public and controlled by the supplier or its economic group – these are the online channels that require previous interaction between hotel and customer, such as website areas accessible only to those enrolled in loyalty programs, that is, the hotels’ own websites can offer prices and conditions without parity, in an environment that is not accessible to the general public, such as areas requiring consumer login and electronic/digital messaging such as SMS, email, Whatsapp and Telegram; c) Bookings made via offline channels – in the case of the thus offered bookings, for example, via booking desks (in hotels, airports, etc.), physical tourism agencies or telephone service channels, the OTAs may exceptionally require parity in relation to the more beneficial fees or conditions, if it is disclosed in any online channel freely available to the general public, which means any website, not only websites in which bookings are made; and
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