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Japanese travel and tourism industries.
News consolidated by Travel Vision, Inc. updated every week.
One third of Airlines, Travel Websites in EU Contains Misleading
Descriptions; JFTC Urges Correct Representation of Surcharge Early-June 2008
European Union (EU) announced that its investigation found one
third of websites operated by airlines and travel agencies in Europe
are liable to mislead consumers. EU warns that unless they are
corrected by the end of May next year, it will impose sanction on
them according to the enforcement guideline of Consumer Protection
Law and will take further punitive actions if necessary.
It made a probe into 386 websites of major airlines, low cost
carriers, and travel agencies who sell air tickets and detected
serious breaches of the law on 137 sites, one third of the total.
Such violations are often found with airlines' and travel agencies'
websites, says an official of EU.
The probe found a site, for example, of a travel agency on which
discount rates were shown, but in reality the agency additionally
charged booking fee, airport tax, handling fee of credit card, and
other costs for ticket purchase. After EU alerted the site operators
in question, nearly half of them responded with correction, but some
still leave the sites untouched, the official said.
* Indication of fuel surcharge is at issue in Japan
Just as the correct representation of air fares and travel
contents has become a point of controversy in Europe, handling and
indication of fuel surcharge is at issue in Japan. Under the
circumstances where the surcharge, an extra payment added to the
regular air fare, spiked so much in a short period of time, Japan
Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) cautions that travel industry should
tackle this problem so that it avoids giving false impression to
consumers.
JFTC, a government watchdog agency to monitor law enforcement
against mislabeling and misleading representation, suggests
indicating a rough idea how much the surcharge might be at the time
of traveling. It shows an understanding, in the meantime, of JATA's
efforts to solve the price indication problem by appealing to
airlines with a request to include the surcharge into the IT fare
systems and to fulfill accountability through their public relations
activities to the consumers.
Travel Agency Fair Trade Council has formulated a guideline for
notifying the additional surcharge, whether it should be a fixed sum
or an expected one, at the time of product release. The Council is
going to send out the recommendation to the member agencies this
month or next month at the latest.
Apart from such a move, H.I.S. has begun selling products at the
prices inclusive of the surcharge, and Club Tourism indicates the
expected sum of surcharge in its advertisement.
However, the Council, in face of a number of complaints from
consumers, is worried about the risk of being accused of improper
representation in spite of the JFTC's temporary understanding.
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) is
ready to issue a notice at any moment to advise travel agencies to
indicate the expected surcharge amount alongside the tour price, but
is now watching how the travel trade's independent efforts will
proceed and how the discussion between travel agencies and airlines
will turn out.
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