As 2015 comes to an end we always make the effort to evaluate how well the year has proceeded. This year we have removed our guest house from the main reservation brokers and proceeded to go it alone for the very first time. Pretty scary at first, but it has actually worked out splendidly for our business and we now know that we are able to survive solely on first-hand reservations made through the telephone as well as though our own web site. Unsurprisingly, on going through the web we discovered that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had actually embarked on a detailed examination of the two main hotel reservation brokers, Booking.com and Expedia. Their investigation focused on potential price fixing by them. Essentially, these reservation brokers were potentially fixing the room rate by contractually insisting that no other web-based travel representative offer them at a lower price. Fortunately, it looks like it has already resulted in improvement within the industry as we are now able to provide less costly bedrooms than are advertised on Booking.com and Expedia. Even so, things are still not completely fair as small hotels and guest houses are still prohibited from providing their rooms at a lower price on their own web site. But at least the CMA is still looking into this and has recently requested information from our sector, so hope remains eternal.