Booking.com “throws hoteliers under the bus” – “Their claims are inaccurate and misleading”

The claims made by European hotel associations against Booking.com are inaccurate and misleading.

This was stated by a spokesperson for Booking.com in comments to the Luxembourg Times, responding to the pan-European class action being pursued by over 30 national hotel associations across Europe – including the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels.

The aim of the hoteliers' lawsuit, which is coordinated by the Hotel Claims Alliance Foundation and supported by HOTREC – Hotels, Restaurants, Bars & Cafés in Europe – and the national hotel associations, is to seek compensation for the damage they have suffered due to the unfair practices the platform has allegedly engaged in for many years. The central issue in the dispute is the so-called “best price” or parity clauses.

The path for the pan-European collective lawsuit by hoteliers against Booking.com was opened by a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on September 19, 2024, which found that the platform’s parity clauses violated EU competition law.

However, the Booking.com spokesperson argued that the CJEU ruling did not conclude that Booking.com's price parity clauses caused unfair competition. He emphasized that, in fact, the EU Court was not even asked to assess whether Booking.com’s clauses had anti-competitive effects or any impact on competition. The court simply stated that the clauses fall within the scope of EU competition law and that their effects must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Since 2004, Booking.com’s parity clauses have caused a serious competitive disadvantage for Greek hotels, resulting in significant financial damage, because:

They restricted price competition between Booking.com and other online platforms, forcing hotels to pay higher commissions.

They prevented hotels from offering better prices or availability on their own websites, strangling direct sales and their operational independence.

This regime created unfair competition, as hotels lacked control over their own product, disproportionately affecting small and medium-sized hotel businesses that lost the ability to negotiate their prices.

The Booking.com spokesperson also noted that as of Monday, the company had not received any official notification of a class action lawsuit against it.

As noted in a written statement by Booking.com to Deutsche Welle (DW), what has been made public is simply a statement from HOTREC and not the filing of a collective lawsuit. In the same statement, Booking.com said: “Each of our partners is free to set their own distribution and pricing strategies and may offer their rooms wherever they choose.”

Nevertheless, the pan-European class action against Booking.com continues to gain momentum, with more than 10,000 hotels from across Europe having already registered on the website www.mybookingclaim.com to seek compensation from Booking.com.

“This initiative is, above all, a powerful message that the industry is demanding a fairer and more transparent digital market for businesses and consumers alike,” said Mr. Alexandros Vassilikos, President of HOTREC and the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels, in a social media statement.

In response to the growing interest from European hoteliers and to assist them during the busy summer season, the registration deadline has been extended by four weeks, until August 29, 2025.

According to a study by HOTREC and the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland Valais, Booking Holdings’ market share in 2023 was 71% across Europe and reached 72.3% in Germany.