Three leading hotel chains are being investigated over whether they broke competition law by sharing sensitive market information.
Britain’s leading anti-cartel watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was launching a probe into three competing hotel chains - Hilton, IHG Hotels and Marriott - as well as CoStar, the owner of the hotel data analytics tool STR.
The CMA said that it was normal commercial practice for companies to use “data analytics tools and algorithms to help them make commercial decisions.”
However when rivals shred competitively sensitive information - including through a third-party data analytics provider - “this reduces the uncertainty competing businesses normally have about how each other will act.”
The CMA said “this can affect how strongly companies compete because it makes it easier for them to predict what each other will do and coordinate their behaviour.”
The CMA added: “At this stage, no assumptions should be made about whether the law has been broken” but “following a period of investigation and information gathering, the CMA may issue a statement of objections if it comes to the provisional view that competition law has been infringed.”
Between them the three chains operate hundreds of venues in the UK including some of Britain’s best known destinations.
Hilton runs over 200 hotels across its various brands in the UK under a range of brands including Hampton by Hilton, DoubleTree, and Hilton Garden Inn. Its flagship is the five star London Hilton on Park Lane.
FTSE 100 listed IHG operates more than 300 hotels across the UK under the Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, Kimpton, and Crowne Plaza brands.
There are around 135 Marriott locations in the UK with several well known locations in London.
Its flagship is the JW Marriott Grosvenor House London on Park Lane in Mayfair. Another well known London location is the London Marriott Hotel County Hall at the former headquarters of the GLC on the South Bank near the London Eye.
Its US parent Marriott International is one of the world's largest hotel operators with a portfolio spanning around 9,000 properties across more than 140 countries
CoStar Group, a Washington-based real estate data and analytics company, acquired STR in 2019.
