IHG drops Expedia, Hotels.com over Web standards policy

%3A%3A Travel Weekly - The National Newspaper of the Travel Industry %3A%3A: "InterContinental Hotels Group will continue to distribute through Travelocity Priceline Hotwire and Mark Travel Web sites but will drop Expedia and Hotels.com in a dispute over a new IHG standard. IHG officials said its 3500 properties including all brands that it owns mannages or franchises will cease selling merchant and retail inventory through Expedia and Hotels.com in three months. Sales on these two sites account for about 1% of IHGs room revenue IHG officials said. And thats about half of the room revenue that IHG takes in from major online distributors.IHG adopted a new distribution standard for its online partners May 20. Among the elements distributors are required to clearly present fees to consumers must avoid confusing marketing practices and must automate the reservations process. officials said Expedia and Hotels.com -- sister companies owned by IAC InterActiveCorp -- were not certified because they bundle taxes and service fees mislead consumers that inventory is sold out when it is only the merchant inventory that is unavailable and use an inefficient and manual reservations process. However Hotwire another IAC company satisfied the hotel companys concerns officials said.An Expedia spokesman said talks with IHG were at a standstill but he was surprised that IHG went public with a press release and press conference. "