Booking, the Antitrust starts investigation for abuse of dominant position

The Competition Authority is targeting Booking – following reports from Federalberghi and Confindustria Alberghi – to verify whether it abuses its dominant position in the market of online intermediation and booking services for hotel facilities.

The Authority announced this in a note, adding that yesterday the Authority’s officials carried out inspections at the offices of Booking.com (Italy) srl, with the help of the Special Antitrust Unit of the Financial Police.

The provision states that among online agencies, “Booking has acquired a position of absolute importance over the years” and that in 2019 “it is the dominant operator in many European countries, intermediating on average approximately 68% of hotel bookings made through” digital platforms. “In Italy, this share reaches around 70%”.

In this position of absolute strength, Booking according to the Agcm would confer on the hotel structures that are part of the Preferred Partner Program (and its Favorites Plus extension) advantages in terms of visibility of your offer in search results, compared to higher commissions and the commitment to offer ‘competitive’ prices on booking.comi.e. no higher than those that the facilities apply on their own website or on the platforms of other online travel agencies.

And yet if the platform finds, as a result of extensive and sophisticated monitoring, that a structure offers better prices on other online sites, Booking reserves the right to apply, without the consent of the structures, a discount (the so-called ‘Booking Sponsored Benefit’) to align the booking.com offer with the best among those available online.

Taken as a whole, this strategy – according to the Authority – seems suitable for hinder effective competition in the market, at least nationally, of online hotel intermediation and booking services, to the detriment of other online travel agencies with negative effects on accommodation facilities and, ultimately, on consumers in terms of higher prices and less choice in intermediation services and online booking.

“We can confirm that we are fully collaborating with the Financial Police and the Competition and Market Authority, who yesterday carried out inspections in our offices in Italy”, Booking said.