03 Aug 2026
Words Adam Henke

The Guest We’re Expected to Host — but Not Allowed to Contact

Good guest experiences begin long before arrival. They depend on clear confirmation, accurate expectations and timely information. For many serviced apartments, management rights businesses and holiday properties, they also require online check-in, identity and payment verification, security-deposit authorisation and after-hours access instructions.

Yet accommodation operators are increasingly expected to deliver a seamless arrival while being denied the most basic tool required: a reliable means of contacting the guest.

Over recent months, Expedia reservations received across the four Byron Bay properties under my management — Bayview Beachfront Apartments, Outrigger Bay, Terraces on Main and Pacific on Clarkes — have increasingly arrived without usable guest contact details. Telephone fields may contain numbers such as 1111111111, while email addresses are anonymised or routed through relay systems that restrict effective pre-arrival communication. Expedia's messaging platform may also redact property websites and links used for online check-in.

This is no longer an administrative inconvenience. It is a guest-experience, operational-safety and commercial issue.

When communication fails, the property wears the blame

The guest books through Expedia and reasonably assumes the property has everything required for their arrival. Meanwhile, the operator may be trying to send an online check-in link, obtain a pre-authorisation, explain reception hours or provide after-hours access instructions.

If those messages are blocked, redacted or sent to an inbox the guest does not monitor, the guest may arrive unable to access the property. They believe the property failed to communicate. The operator receives the complaint or poor review, staff manage an avoidable after-hours incident, and Expedia’s brand is also damaged.

The consequences are more serious when contact is urgent. Flights are delayed, severe weather affects access, apartments become unavailable through maintenance, and guests sometimes require relocation. A two-minute telephone call can become hours of contact with Expedia Support or an affiliate — and may still never reach the traveller.

That is not an adequate emergency communication system.

Modern accommodation requires pre-arrival engagement

Serviced apartments, resort-management businesses and self-check-in properties legitimately require guest identification, payment verification, registration, security deposits and access arrangements. These are not marketing activities or attempts to bypass Expedia. They are fundamental to safely accommodating someone who has booked to stay.

Consider the same reservation made directly. If someone telephoned my property but refused to provide functioning contact details, identification or the payment authorisation required under our conditions, we would decline the reservation. That is responsible accommodation management.

Yet Expedia expects properties to make an exception for its distribution channel under the guise of ‘protecting’ the guest. To put it bluntly, this is bollocks.

The property remains responsible for verifying the guest, protecting a privately owned apartment, managing payment risk and ensuring safe access. Expedia restricts the information required to perform those tasks but assumes none of the resulting operational responsibility.

Privacy and communication are not mutually exclusive

Privacy and security concerns deserve to be taken seriously. Accommodation operators also have obligations to protect personal and financial information.

However, a secure system should protect travellers from misuse while providing at least one verified means of contacting them for legitimate operational purposes. Expedia already entrusts Hotel Collect properties with payment processing, financial information, PCI DSS compliance and regulatory obligations. Apparently, we can be trusted with the guests’ money and accommodation, but not always with a working telephone number to explain how to access it.

If Expedia will not release direct details, alternatives exist: guest consent to share them; a masked but functioning telephone connection; messaging that permits secure links from approved property domains; or an urgent pathway connecting operator and traveller directly.

The commercial equation

Then there’s the cost.

In my business, Expedia charges 16.5% commission. For Expedia Collect bookings, the full gross tariff is loaded onto a virtual credit card, attracting a further 3.52% merchant fee, while Expedia invoices its commission separately.

For every $1,000 reservation, that means:

$165 in commission;
$35.20 in merchant fees; and
an immediate distribution and payment cost of $200.20 or 20.02% of the gross tariff.

Because the virtual card contains the gross tariff, the property also pays merchant fees on Expedia’s commission. If only the net proceeds of $835 were loaded, the fee would be approximately $29.39: a saving of $5.81 per $1,000, or $5,810 for every $1 million processed. Net virtual-card settlement, or direct remittance, would remove this unnecessary cost. (I note that direct transfer is an option, but without a direct market manager for the region, trying to have this changed has also turned into a nightmare of sorts).

I may then pay more than $40 per hour for an employee to chase Expedia, sometimes repeatedly, merely to confirm that a traveller understands reception hours and after-hours access.

The property pays the commission, processing fee, merchant fee on Expedia’s commission and labour required to find the guest. It manages the after-hours consequences and receives the complaint when communication fails.

Every operator must therefore ask: Is this channel still commercially viable? Would the rooms sell elsewhere? Would another channel deliver them at a lower total acquisition cost?

I have already removed Agoda’s direct connectivity to my channel manager after concluding that unauthorised discounting, communication restrictions and difficulty contacting guests were incompatible with my operational and commercial requirements. Expedia’s current practices now demand the same independent assessment.

I am not advocating coordinated withdrawal of inventory. Every operator must evaluate its own contracts, demand and channel performance. But access to inventory is not an entitlement. It must be earned through a partnership that provides commercially worthwhile reservations the property can safely service.

A call for practical action

After repeated support responses without meaningful escalation, I wrote an open letter to Expedia Group and circulated it among operators, advisers and industry stakeholders. I have approached ARAMA, the Australian Hotels Association, Accommodation Australia, tourism bodies and technology providers. The strong response suggests this is not an isolated complaint.

We are asking Expedia for:

at least one verified way to contact a booked guest for legitimate operational purposes;
messaging that permits essential check-in information and secure links;
an effective urgent-contact pathway;
engagement between Expedia’s product leadership and Australia’s accommodation industry; and
net settlement of Expedia Collect bookings.

This is not about marketing, bypassing Expedia or soliciting future bookings. Expedia facilitates the reservation, but the operator must deliver the stay.

Good guest experiences begin with good communication. It’s time for Expedia to restore it. END

Adam Henke is Managing Director of Byron on the Bay Pty Ltd, managing Bayview Beachfront Apartments, Outrigger Bay, Terraces on Main and Pacific on Clarkes in Byron Bay. www.byrononthebay.com.