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I'd have no idea if they are legally right or not and wouldn't hazard a guess either way. However, a couple of comments.
The "low prices" have to be coming from someplace, most probably between the hotels and the wholesalers who buy or contract for blocks of rooms. Whether or not you can list the hotels and low prices might be covered in whatever agreements exist between the wholesalers and hotels, and then the agreement between the wholesalers and you.
My first thoughts would be, "Hey, if they don't want the promotion, I don't want the hassle," and take down the references. I'd then contact the wholesalers for clarification of the policies. If the wholesalers say it's okay, then I'd strongly recommend spending a few bucks to have a lawyer review their responses and whatever agreements exist before reposting any of the hotel information. Getting into a three-party "they said," "they said" conflict is very sticky.
Good luck.
The main problem is that many of these hotels are our best sellers and if we dont offer them or not offer them at the current rates then the clients will just go to my competitors who have similar rates. I have tried to explain that to the hotels but they arent really interested offcourse
Trademarks don't give a company the complete control that many of them seem to think. Others can use the trademark in many ways without their permission, whether they like it or not. You should really find a good lawyer that knows trademark law and specifically ask him.
"Pretty sure" ain't really good enough. You have to know what the situation is. Since you've already been contacted by some hotels, you have to protect yourself. Basically pay now or pay later. It will only take a hotel's lawyer 3 minutes to fill in the blanks on whichever papers are served, depending on the course of action decided.
I'm not trying to sound alarmist here, but one of the biggest advantages of having an attorney in place either before you need 'em or at the very early stages is to avoid the sinking feeling of hearing the words, "Ooh, I really wish you hadn't done that."
I understand that I should try to stay clear from their lawyers but the problem is that more and more hotels are doing this and before i know it I have no hotel to sell to my clients. The hotels feel that they deserve the right to get all internet business straight through their site, not through online travel companies. InterContinental hotels i believe it was recently pulled all their hotels of expedia. They could do that because expedia had direct contract with them.
I think the main issue here is and i will ask a lawyer about this, can a hotel chain forbid me to have their name on my website. The complaints from them (never send by laywer, allways some sales manager) are not that I can not sell at this rate officially, their official stand is that their company name is a trademark and I can not mention their name on my site without their written approval. The emails are very arrogant but I am wondering if they are really in the right?
If you legitimately sell their rooms (and that's for a lawyer to verify first), then there's no way they can prevent you from using their name for that purpose. In such a context, that name isn't as much a trademark as simply the description of the product sold. Hotel Miranda can't prevent you from calling a room in their house "a room in hotel Miranda", simply because that's what it is, and calling it by any other name would be false advertizing.
They hotels demand that I tell them where i buy the rooms from. I dont have to tell them right? otherwise I loose this wholesaler.
So the way it looks then is that the wholesalers might not be honouring the contract. Many hotels however dont want to stand up agains the wholesalers as they bring too much business. I guess if the hotel was smart then they could just make a booking and see from who they eventually get it
Ask them "Is my publication of hotel data, images and use of the property name covered by the terms of any contract or agreement between you - the wholesaler - and the hotel chains or hotels"? I would be surprised if they did not have an agreement that allowed republication of hotel info, images, etc. If they lacked such authority it would undermine their resale efforts.
Ask them - the wholesaler - to be specific. "Is there specific contract language that allows me to publish this information and protects me from any claim?"
Ask them - the wholesalers - and then let us know what you learn.
I am certain that the first thing your lawyer would ask is "Is there an agreement that covers this?" That's what I would do. Save yourself the time and expense of having the lawyer write such a letter. Do it yourself.
We can't give you the requisite legal guidance and assurances. That said, I think there's certain steps you haven't taken that you should ASAP.
Please investigate this by contacting the wholesaler and let us know what you discover. You can even report back that "they won't respond", which could be interesting.
Many of the hotels that are complaining do have clausule in contract stating that these rates can not be passed on to online travel companies. The wholesaler makes their own contract for their agent with all the rates and the clausule does not show anymore anywhere. So from the point of view of the travel website owner (me) there is no knowledge that they can not sell the hotels for these rates.
About photo's, text and other information, there is also nothing mentioned to the wholesaler as in regards of passing out this info to third parties. To be honoust, they normally dont even give any of that to a wholesaler other then a small brochure sometimes. They text and description on my site has been rewritten by staff to an original text and was taken from various sources
Only problem which I can see now is the pictures. All the travel website around the world use the same pictures, they all copy it from each other. I would imagine the original owner of the pictures would be the hotel as they probably ordered these photos to be made in the rooms, pool etc. So i imagine that they could force you to take of the pictures.
ICH has their own aff program through BFast. I know they have some funny rules like you cannot use their trademarked names in the title tags - but other than that they aff team is pretty nice - they were very responsive to a number of my questions, even going as far as sending me the landing page link code for every hotel in the world in a language that the code generator didn't support.
Just play by the rules, and you will be rewarded.
