U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is proposing a bill
mandating that hotels include resort fees and all other mandatory charges in
the publication of their room rates.
McCaskill introduced the
bill last week and said the Federal
Trade Commission should have authority to enforce full publication of charges
or take civil action to hotel operators that fail to do so.
“It’s clear there’s a bait-and-switch going on when it
comes to these hidden hotel fees, and consumers are paying the price,” said
McCaskill.
McCaskill has been pushing for more transparent
lodging prices since at least last summer, when she added a “Submit Your Scam”
section to her website that encouraged her constituents to report on instances
when they said they were misled on hotel charges.
Fees that aren’t included in the base room price have
been on the rise. Bjorn Hanson, clinical professor with the New York University
Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism, foecasted last August
that 2015 hotel fees and surcharges would rise 5% from the year before, to $2.47
billion, on a combination of increased hotel demand and hiked surcharges.