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According to dotwnews.com, three major hotel groups are currently under investigation by the UK’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) over claims of price-fixing. The accused hotels; Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Radisson and Thistle have allegedly been secretly setting room rates with online travel agents and ordering them not to offer any discounts.

If the hotel groups are found guilty of fixing prices, a fine of around 10 percent of their annual turnover could be imposed, which could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

The investigation began after a traveller contacted the OFT when he saw rooms at the five-star Radisson May Fair hotel in London advertised at exactly the same rate on various websites. On Expedia, Travelocity and Booking.com the room rate was advertised at US$337 the same as the hotel’s website. He thought this wasn’t a coincidence but a prime example of price fixing.

Holidaymakers could have paid hundreds of pounds over what they should have.

A spokesman for Starwood said, “Starwood Hotels & Resorts requires our properties to adhere to all legislation and takes this matter seriously. Starwood has not been contacted by the Office of Fair Trading but is willing to assist with any information they require.”

A spokesman for the OFT said, “The investigation was at a relatively early stage. “After a preliminary review of the evidence gathered to date, the OFT continues to consider this matter as an administrative priority and is pursuing the investigation further.”

On 6th April, software developer Availpro celebrated its 10 year anniversary and, on the very same day, handled its 10 millionth room sale for its customers. A decade after it was founded, the company’s purpose remains the same: to provide hotel owners with the most effective platform possible for selling their hotel offer online. Philippe Lamarche, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Availpro, took this opportunity to outline the company’s progress to date and the challenges it will face in the future.

Since Availpro was founded, more than 10 million room sales have passed through the company’s solutions (online and Facebook booking engines, e-distributors and GDS systems connected to Availpro). With this strong growth in room bookings, the company has achieved double-digit growth figures every year since its creation.

Now, in 2011, thousands of hotels in more than 53 countries use Availpro on a daily basis. This success is, in part, due to the reliability and effectiveness of Availpro’s solutions, and to the fact that the company has built strong personal and technical relationships with a network of 300 partners (e-distributors, online agencies, hotel software developers, etc.). This success is reflected in customer satisfaction levels, with 94% of customers satisfied or very satisfied with Availpro’s solutions.

Availpro has been an online hotel booking pioneer since 2003 and was the first company to create an XML Channel Manager for independent hotels and to invent the central inventory concept. In 2011, Availpro has once again revolutionised the sector, with the launch of the first booking engine fully integrated into Facebook. This latest innovation has already enjoyed huge success.

Philippe Lamarche, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Availpro, outlines his vision for the future of Availpro: “What sets us apart from our competitors is the fact that we offer new, value-added functions to our customers. By enabling our customers to manage all or part of their distribution tasks online (sales, customer feedback management, competitor price monitoring, etc.) via a single application, we save them precious time. With the extraordinary success of our Facebook booking engine, we are now the leading provider in the new “Social Booking” market. Our offices in the UK, Spain and Portugal are expanding rapidly. The future looks bright, with superb opportunities for both ourselves and our customers. We are confident that we can maintain the same level of growth throughout 2011.”