Mass. Agents Avert Burdensome New Regs

ASTA is crediting its members’ grassroots efforts for influencing the Massachusetts Legislature to not move forward this year on two bills the organization believes would place burdens on the state’s travel agencies.

One of the bills (H. 2690) would have required any seller of travel to provide a written, itemized description of any “commissions” the seller received from a third party.

The second (H. 4116) would have required agents to provide information to consumers “in a clear and conspicuous manner” regarding the potential health and safety risks associated with overseas “vacation destinations” that the agency markets.

Bills may be reintroduced
Although the two bills are “dead for this year,” there is nothing to prevent Massachusetts lawmakers, who ended their formal session on July 31, to reintroduce them at a later date.

“In fact, I fully expect they will be reintroduced,” Eben Peck, ASTA’s vice president of government affairs, told Travel Market Report.

Hotel tax issue
The Massachusetts Legislature also removed from the state’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget a proposed new tax on travel services. The proposal would have made travel agents’ service fees for hotel bookings subject to state and local hotel occupancy taxes.

The proposal is part of a wider trend among state and local governments to find ways to extract more revenue from hotel occupancy taxes, according to Peck.

“It’s no secret that cities and states are in bad shape, so they are looking to extract part of the agent’s fees as it relates to the hotel booking,” he said.

According to Peck, several similar hotel tax proposals around the country currently are caught up in the court system.

“The ways these laws written indicates they are really targeting the big OTAs like Expedia, not smaller agencies,” he said.

Grassroots call to action
In announcing the Massachusetts Legislature’s decisions, ASTA cited the efforts of  “Massachusetts travel agents who answered ASTA’s grassroots calls to action.”

“Fighting punitive bills like these and preventing discriminatory, burdensome regulation from being applied to travel agents is one of ASTA’s top priorities,” said ASTA president and chair Nina Meyer in a statement.

ASTA also cited efforts by the leadership of ASTA’s New England Chapter, including president Gabe Garavanian and immediate past president and chapter ASTAPAC chair Mike Spinelli. ASTA also acknowledged support from the Interactive Travel Services Association.

‘Burdensome’ requirement
At a July 2011 legislative hearing, Spinelli testified on behalf of ASTA against H. 2690, the bill that would have required agents to give clients a detailed account of their commissions.

Spinelli, at the time president of ASTA’s New England chapter, made the point that travel agents are already required by state law to disclose fees charged to consumers.

This bill, with its “burdensome and duplicative requirements,” would be difficult, if not impossible, to manage with online booking engines, according to ASTA’s argument.

“ASTA felt that travel agents were being singled out for special treatment – not in a good way – for opening their books,” Peck said. “We couldn’t see how consumers were being harmed by not knowing more commission details.”

Too much information
Regarding the health and safety disclosure requirements contained in H.4416, Garavanian sent statements to the Legislature in June, on behalf of ASTA, laying out the adverse impact the bill would have on Massachusetts travel agents.

ASTA argued that the bill did not require destinations themselves to provide health and safety information to consumers or agencies.

It also noted that, with more than 150,000 hotel and resort properties around the world, there is no practical way for travel agents to ensure that information for each destination is available, accurate and up-to-date.

“This bill was introduced after a tragic drowning occurred in a hotel swimming pool in Cancun during a family vacation, so it is well-intentioned,” Peck said. “However, it reflects a misunderstanding of how things work.”