Marriott To Fight DC's Deceptive Hotel Rates Lawsuit

BETHESDA, MD — Marriott International Inc. — the Bethesda-based hotel giant being sued for improper and deceptive pricing practices — isn't backing down from the accusations without a fight.

In an interview published on LinkedIn over the weekend, the hotel giant's CEO, Arne Sorenson, promised to fight the lawsuit filed last week by Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine.

The lawsuit alleges that Marriott has used an illegal trade practice called "drip pricing," which involves hiding a portion of a hotel room's daily rate from guests and later charging them additional mandatory fees. Those extra charges are sometimes called resort, amenity, and destination fees.

The lawsuit brought forth by Racine is part of an ongoing multi-state investigation into the hotel industry's pricing practices. Started in 2016, the lawsuit is being conducted by attorneys general in all 50 states.

"We've been talking to the attorneys general for many states for a number of years," Sorenson told LinkedIn Editor-in-Chief David Roth. "D.C. withdrew, at sort of the last minute, and decided to make a bigger test case out of it. We'll obviously fight it and we think it's wrong."

Defending the company on video, Sorenson says that Marriott's resort fees are "well-disclosed."

Racine, on the other hand, calls this "a straight-forward price deception case."

"One key effect of this price deception is that consumers shopping for a hotel room on either Marriott's website, or an online travel agency site ("OTA") like Priceline or Expedia, are misled into believing a Marriott hotel room is cheaper than it actually is," Racine said. "Marriott's motive in continuing this deceptive practice is pure profit. It has reaped hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade from this deceptive 'drip pricing.'"

The hospitality chain owns, manages, or franchises at least 189 hotels that charge resort fees, according to the suit. The charges range from $9 to as much as $95 per day.

Racine says that the District is filing this lawsuit to force Marriott to advertise the true prices of its hotel rooms.

"Marriott's unlawful trade practice has affected District consumers, as Marriott has charged resort fees to tens of thousands of District consumers over the years, charging those consumers well in excess of a million dollars," the lawsuit states.

In response to the suit, Sorenson said Marriott tries to be transparent with guests about these fees. He also acknowledged that while customers don't like these charges, most of them know what they entail.

"What we've tried to do is to be very clear about our disclosure. It's one of the frustrating things about this lawsuit from the moment it started," Sorenson said. "The first resort fees were probably a decade ago, maybe a little bit longer than that. And yes, they were financially driven in some respects, but they're also a way of saying let's fold in the waterfront paddle board rental or the bike rental, or other things that can be part of this package."

Not all Marriott hotels have these fees. And Sorenson doesn't believe they are going anywhere.

"We want to make sure we are continuing to deliver value for them," Sorenson said.

You can watch the LinkedIn interview with Sorenson below:

SEE ALSO:

• DC Sues Bethesda-Based Marriott For Deceptive Hotel Rates