Consumer law update
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dhewitt@abta.co.uk Wed, 04/16/2025 - 13:03
We can now update on our previous guidance on the Digital Markets, Competition & Consumers Act and what it means for members.
The Act has come into force in respect of the consumer law changes and more information has been released. There is CMA guidance unfair commercial practices – on how to comply with this important aspect of consumer law, on fake reviews; and on what the CMA plans to focus on in the next 12 months.
ABTA has been making submissions on behalf of members in particular areas.
The new law makes clear that prices advertised to consumers must contain all mandatory fees and charges (for full information see our previous guidance).
The CMA had proposed that holiday prices must include compulsory tourist taxes and resort fees paid in destination. ABTA pushed back on this, and it is not part of the current CMA guidance. The CMA has said it will return to the point, see below.
What is the current position? The CMA believes the law requires that businesses must present the total price of a product to ensure that the consumer is not faced with genuinely unexpected and untrailed mandatory charges revealed at the end of the purchasing journey.
This is an example given of a prohibited drip pricing practice:
A hotel provides a price of £100 per room, per night, on their website. The consumer inputs the dates of their two-night weekend stay into the hotel’s website and is provided with a total price of £200 for the entirety of their stay. The consumer navigates through several webpages of optional extras, such as upgrading the room to one of a bigger size and adding a bunch of flowers to the room. The consumer does not choose to add any additional extras to their stay. After the consumer completes their choices, the consumer is informed of a ‘weekend surcharge’ of £25 per night. The total price of the stay is therefore £250. The consumer was initially provided a total price for the stay as £200. The ‘weekend surcharge’ was not presented to the consumer until the very last stages of the purchase.
The CMA has issued guidance on how businesses can achieve the new legal requirement to ‘take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent the publication of fake consumer reviews’.
A fake review is a consumer review that purports to be, but is not, based on a person’s genuine experience.
All businesses that publish reviews, or review information, need to have a policy that prohibits fake reviews, and processes in place to detect and remove them, where there is a risk of banned reviews appearing. ‘Publishing’ includes making available in any way. ‘Review information’ means information that is derived from consumer reviews, and examples include aggregated information in the form of overall ratings, review counts and rankings.
ABTA asked the question as to how businesses comply if they use reviews provided by a third party, e.g. your website shows the Tripadvisor rating for the hotels you feature. The guidance now includes a section recognising the distinction between businesses who
It states that ‘if a second-party publisher wishes to rely on the steps taken by a first-party publisher whose reviews or information they reference, the second-party publisher should review the first-party publisher’s policies and arrangements for tackling banned content to satisfy themselves, on reasonable grounds, that those arrangements meet the duty.’
There are several new offences concerning fake reviews, and members are advised to read the guidance in full.
For example, it’s now an offence to hide the fact that a review has been incentivised. If you publish a review that someone has written about you, and this has been commissioned by you in some way – e.g. paid for, or in exchange for a discount or a free stay, you must make sure you do two things: tell consumers that the review has been incentivised, and the review must still reflect the reviewer’s genuine experience.
The issue of whether tourist taxes and resort fees should be included in holiday prices will be returned to by the CMA this summer. ABTA will continue to engage with the CMA on behalf of members. We will keep you informed of any more developments, and we will issue general guidance for members on the new consumer law.
The CMA has its new enforcement powers and it’s expected to want to tackle fake reviews. It has named four areas of focus:
It has said it expects to focus on ‘more egregious practices where the law is clear’. This is welcome, if it means that it focuses on traders who create substantial harm for consumers, and it uses the law as already understood, rather than introducing new obligations, particularly in respect of pricing. It notes in its approach document that ‘we want to support the vast majority of businesses who work hard to do the right thing by their customers’.
The CMA has also said it will ‘carry out extensive engagement with businesses and develop further materials to help businesses to comply with the law’.
If you have any queries, please contact Member Support on membersupport@abta.co.uk, or 020 3117 0597.
Continue reading...
Full Page image
dhewitt@abta.co.uk Wed, 04/16/2025 - 13:03
We can now update on our previous guidance on the Digital Markets, Competition & Consumers Act and what it means for members.
The Act has come into force in respect of the consumer law changes and more information has been released. There is CMA guidance unfair commercial practices – on how to comply with this important aspect of consumer law, on fake reviews; and on what the CMA plans to focus on in the next 12 months.
Important issues for members
ABTA has been making submissions on behalf of members in particular areas.
Pricing
The new law makes clear that prices advertised to consumers must contain all mandatory fees and charges (for full information see our previous guidance).
The CMA had proposed that holiday prices must include compulsory tourist taxes and resort fees paid in destination. ABTA pushed back on this, and it is not part of the current CMA guidance. The CMA has said it will return to the point, see below.
What is the current position? The CMA believes the law requires that businesses must present the total price of a product to ensure that the consumer is not faced with genuinely unexpected and untrailed mandatory charges revealed at the end of the purchasing journey.
This is an example given of a prohibited drip pricing practice:
A hotel provides a price of £100 per room, per night, on their website. The consumer inputs the dates of their two-night weekend stay into the hotel’s website and is provided with a total price of £200 for the entirety of their stay. The consumer navigates through several webpages of optional extras, such as upgrading the room to one of a bigger size and adding a bunch of flowers to the room. The consumer does not choose to add any additional extras to their stay. After the consumer completes their choices, the consumer is informed of a ‘weekend surcharge’ of £25 per night. The total price of the stay is therefore £250. The consumer was initially provided a total price for the stay as £200. The ‘weekend surcharge’ was not presented to the consumer until the very last stages of the purchase.
Fake reviews
The CMA has issued guidance on how businesses can achieve the new legal requirement to ‘take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent the publication of fake consumer reviews’.
A fake review is a consumer review that purports to be, but is not, based on a person’s genuine experience.
All businesses that publish reviews, or review information, need to have a policy that prohibits fake reviews, and processes in place to detect and remove them, where there is a risk of banned reviews appearing. ‘Publishing’ includes making available in any way. ‘Review information’ means information that is derived from consumer reviews, and examples include aggregated information in the form of overall ratings, review counts and rankings.
ABTA asked the question as to how businesses comply if they use reviews provided by a third party, e.g. your website shows the Tripadvisor rating for the hotels you feature. The guidance now includes a section recognising the distinction between businesses who
- are directly responsible for obtaining, verifying and managing reviews (namely, a ‘first-party publisher’ such as a review website), as opposed to those who
- display on their own websites ratings given on a first-party publisher’s site (a ‘second-party publisher’)
It states that ‘if a second-party publisher wishes to rely on the steps taken by a first-party publisher whose reviews or information they reference, the second-party publisher should review the first-party publisher’s policies and arrangements for tackling banned content to satisfy themselves, on reasonable grounds, that those arrangements meet the duty.’
There are several new offences concerning fake reviews, and members are advised to read the guidance in full.
For example, it’s now an offence to hide the fact that a review has been incentivised. If you publish a review that someone has written about you, and this has been commissioned by you in some way – e.g. paid for, or in exchange for a discount or a free stay, you must make sure you do two things: tell consumers that the review has been incentivised, and the review must still reflect the reviewer’s genuine experience.
What happens next and ABTA support
The issue of whether tourist taxes and resort fees should be included in holiday prices will be returned to by the CMA this summer. ABTA will continue to engage with the CMA on behalf of members. We will keep you informed of any more developments, and we will issue general guidance for members on the new consumer law.
The CMA has its new enforcement powers and it’s expected to want to tackle fake reviews. It has named four areas of focus:
- aggressive sales practices that prey on consumers in vulnerable positions;
- providing information to consumers that is objectively false;
- fees that are hidden until late in the purchase process; and
- contract terms that are clearly imbalanced and unfair.
It has said it expects to focus on ‘more egregious practices where the law is clear’. This is welcome, if it means that it focuses on traders who create substantial harm for consumers, and it uses the law as already understood, rather than introducing new obligations, particularly in respect of pricing. It notes in its approach document that ‘we want to support the vast majority of businesses who work hard to do the right thing by their customers’.
The CMA has also said it will ‘carry out extensive engagement with businesses and develop further materials to help businesses to comply with the law’.
If you have any queries, please contact Member Support on membersupport@abta.co.uk, or 020 3117 0597.
Continue reading...
