Brussels (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The EU Commission said hotel reservation website Booking.com must now concede with stringent EU obligations, following its designation as a “gatekeeper” under the Digital Markets Act.
European Commission stated that Booking Holdings Inc. (BHI), specified as a gatekeeper on 13 May 2024, must ensure that its online intermediation service, Booking.com, complies with all applicable obligations of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
According to the EU Commission, this implies hotels, car rental companies, and other providers of travel services that rely on Booking.com to get their customers can start to enjoy new opportunities.
What are the new obligations for Booking.com under the DMA?
So-called ‘parity’ clauses are restricted by the DMA. Therefore, hotels, car rentals and other service providers using Booking.com are now unrestricted to offer different (including better) costs and conditions on their own website or other mediums than on Booking.com.
Moreover, Booking must not present other measures with the same product as ‘parity’ clauses. For example, Booking is not permitted to increase commission rates or de-list offers of business users if they supply different prices on another website than on Booking.com. This suggests that other platforms and travel service providers can contest under fairer conditions, leading to innovation and lower costs.
How will the new rules affect hotels and travel providers?
Also, hotels and other travel services will contain real-time and constant access to data that they and their customers develop through the use of Booking.com, presenting these businesses with new insights. Business users can now prefer to transfer the data they rendered on Booking.com to alternative venues. This will permit hotels and other suitable travel service providers to develop more innovative arrangements and tailored offers, placing them more competitively on the market.
Furthermore, the Commission states that now Booking is demanded to demonstrate its full and adequate compliance with the DMA by outlining the steps undertaken in a compliance report. The Commission declared that it will now carefully examine the compliance report and assess whether the executed measures are effective in achieving the purposes of the relevant obligations under the DMA.
