Hilton responds to criticism from advertising watchdog
Hilton International Hotels has agreed to more regularly update promotional prices on its website after being chastised by the Advertising Standards Authority for its EENY, MEENY, MINEY..MINIBREAK promotion.
Upholding a complaint from a customer who hadn’t managed to find a room at the lead-in price advertised in the online promotion, which appeared on a website for the hotel’s loyalty scheme, the ASA said Hilton had been unable to show that at least 10% of relevant rooms had been available at the "from" prices.
It acknowledged that Hilton had produced evidence that well over 10% of bookings made during the period the ad was live, from February 20 to June 30, were at "from" prices or even less, but said these include bookings made for stays up to the end of January 2014.
"The ongoing period that we considered the rate reduction was presented as applying to, meant these bookings represented only a fraction of the total number of rooms available, and the sold data was not sufficient to demonstrate availability," it said.
Hilton said that in light of the complaint it had introduced more comprehensive training on lead rate advertising and would roll this out across the organisation. In future, it will update "from" prices on its website on a monthly basis and it is also considering shorter promotional periods
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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