Crime & Safety
Burr Ridge, Willowbrook Involved in Lawsuit Against Online Travel Companies
Ten other northern Illinois municipalities also have signed onto the lawsuit that will try to recoup thousands of dollars believed to be lost to travel companies that book hotel rooms online.
Burr Ridge and Willowbrook are among a dozen Chicago-area municipalities who have signed onto a class action lawsuit that will attempt to gain back potentially thousands of dollars lost in hotel taxes in cases where travel companies book hotel rooms online for customers, the Daily Herald reports.
Other Illinois municipalities already involved include Des Plaines, Tinley Park, Orland Park, Oak Lawn and Oak Brook Terrace, in addition to Warrenville, Rockford, Bedford Park, Orland Hills and, most recently, Arlington Heights.
According to the Daily Herald, Schaumburg, Itasca and Lombard will also consider joining the lawsuit in the coming weeks, andsimilar lawsuits in Wyoming, South Carolina, Georgia and Missouri have already been successful.
As an example, Arlington Heights Finance Director Tom Kuehne said taking into account that 15 to 30 percent of reservations for hotel rooms are made through online travel companies, and that those companies are purchasing the rooms at roughly 40 percent of the retail rate, the village of Arlington Heights could be due between $60,000 to $100,000 in potentially lost revenue over the last ten years.
“By banding together with other villages [in a lawsuit,] there is an economy of cost in sharing costs,” Kuehne said. “There are no up front legal fees, and the lawyers on this case are working on a contingent-fee basis; if they lose, we owe them nothing. If they win, Arlington Heights and the other involved municipalities will pay a percentage to them.”
Read more on Arlington Heights Patch.
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