A leading independent hotelier has called on the European Union to investigate the ‘unethical’ way in which major chains win customer loyalty.
Niels Pedersen, managing director of UK representation-to-reservations company Supranational Hotels, said loyalty ‘bribes’ of gifts and free flights amount of unfair competition with smaller, one-off properties unable to compete.
He claimed many business travellers are going out of their way to stay in unsuitable properties because of the practice.
“I believe this freebie-mania amounts to unfair competition and that the EU should step up its work to challenge this distortion of the market,” Pedersen said. “When executives become hooked on giveaways they do not always choose hotels that offer the best tariff or are in the most sensible places.”
He said the “personal interest” of business travellers come before what is best for their company with many forking out more simply to pick up free gifts.
Pedersen’s comments came at the launch of Sky hotels, a new sub brand of Supranational which the company say offers low cost GDS access for smaller properties in less well-known locations.
Supranational has 1200 member hotels in 75 countries.
Report by Steve Jones
