Business Events Sydney (BESydney) has been granted approval by the competition regulator for an alliance with a collection of local hotels, designed to help win more international business events of 2,000-plus participants.

The Hotel Agreement covers a range of minimum hotel accommodation terms such as room release and cancellation policies, free room concessions, force majeure policies, lowest rate guarantees and quote validity policies.

Hotels within the collection include properties such as InterContinental Sydney, Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour, The Westin Sydney, Shangri-La Hotel Sydney and Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, for a total of 13 five-star hotels, six 4.5-star hotels and three four-star hotels. When pitching for the international business events, BESydney expects that bookings would span 10 or more of the members’ hotels for accommodation.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission issued a Draft Determination on BESydney’s flagged arrangement late last month, saying it was satisfied that the proposed conduct “is likely to result in public benefits” that would outweigh any likely detriment to the public, “including any lessening of competition”.

On Wednesday , the ACCC said it had decided to grant approval for the agreement, agreeing that a 20-year authorisation “is appropriate in this matter, given the low likelihood of any detriments arising from the Proposed Conduct and the limited scope of the Proposed Conduct.”