A558 - Italian Competition Authority: Commitments submitted by Booking during the investigation for alleged abuse of a dominant position have been published
PRESS RELEASE
Booking.com International B.V., Booking.com B.V., Booking.com S.r.l. would have attempted to exclude other OTAs from the online hotel intermediation services market by exploiting its market power towards accommodation facilities
The Italian Competition Authority decided to publish the commitments submitted by the companies Booking.com International B.V., Booking.com B.V., Booking.com (Italia) S.r.l. during the investigation launched last March for alleged abuse of a dominant position. Booking would have attempted to exclude other Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) from the online hotel intermediation services market by exploiting its market power towards accommodation facilities. Specifically, the strategy adopted by Booking would have consisted in making Italian hotel structures less autonomous to differentiate their own rates between booking.com and other online sales channels by joining certain programmes. These are Partner Preferiti and Preferiti Plus, that have advantages of visibility in search results upon payment of higher fees and commitment to offer “competitive” prices on booking.com, and the so-called Booking Sponsored Benefit, which allows Booking to apply - without the consent of the accommodation facility - a discount to align the offer on its platform with the best available online.
Booking.com International B.V., Booking.com B.V., Booking.com (Italia) S.r.l. submitted commitments to ensure that prices charged by accommodation facilities on online sales channels other than booking.com are not taken into account in the operation and promotion of the said programmes.
Any comments from interested third parties on the submitted commitments must be received by the Authority no later than September 13, 2024. Only at the end of this procedure the Authority will decide whether or not to accept the commitments in question.
Rome, 8 August 2024