Hotellery plans to complain: 15,000 hotels require compensation from booking.com!

Hotellery plans to complain: 15,000 hotels require compensation from booking.com!

In the European hotel industry, it is bubbling: More than 15,000 hotels have joined a class action lawsuit against the Booking.com travel portal. This energetic initiative aims to demand compensation for forced price ties between 2004 and 2024. What is exactly? The lawsuit is coordinated by the Hoteliers hope to receive up to 30 percent of the commissions paid plus interest. Hotels from Italy are particularly represented, followed by Germany, the Netherlands, Greece and Austria. Strictly speaking, there are around 2,000 hotels from Germany who take part in this lawsuit, an additional 2,000 parallel proceedings against Booking.com in Amsterdam and Berlin have already strained.

The best price clauses and their consequences

A central point of the lawsuit are the so -called best price clauses, which prevented hotels from offering their rooms cheaper on their own websites. According to a judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) from autumn 2024, these clauses are potentially contrary to competitive. The ECJ has found that platforms like Booking.com can survive economically without such price ties, which gives hoteliers hope. Booking.com vehemently rejected the allegations and argues that the ECJ judgment is not the basis for claims for damages. Nevertheless, the question remains: How long can the company still avoid this lawsuit?

The Hotrec presidents, including the committed Alexandros Vassilikos, underline the unity of the industry in their demand for Booking.com. This has to be considered, because the hotel industry faces a challenge. The best price clauses were abolished by Booking.com in 2024 as part of the Digital Market Act (DMA) in the entire European Economic Area, but the struggle for compensation continues.

market situation and new challenges

In the current market situation, it looks like Booking.com holds an overwhelming market share of 71 percent in Europe and 72.3 percent in Germany. Between 2013 and 2023, the proportion of direct bookings in Germany fell by over 8 percent, which further increases the pressure on the hoteliers. Numbers from the second quarter of 2023 also show that Booking.com achieved sales of $ 6.8 billion, which corresponds to an increase of 16 percent compared to the previous year

Of course, the robust booking figures and the increasing demand in Asia, in particular through wealthy Chinese tourists, have questions: How will this legal dispute affect pricing policy and competition in the online travel business? Is this the turning point for suffering hoteliers? These and many other aspects will shape the coming months for the European hotel industry.