The quota of Booking.com in Maspalomas has fluctuated between 70 and 90% during the investigated period since 2019. The CNMC fined this Tuesday Booking.com, provider of holiday home rentals and hotels in the south of Gran Canaria, with 413,24 million for abusing its dominant position during the last 5 years. The practices have affected hotels located in the south of the island and other online travel agencies that compete with the platform. For the CNMC "its clauses represent an inequitable imbalance in the commercial relationship" with the hotels since "by better positioning the hotels with the most reservations in Booking.com, has prevented other online agencies from entering the market or expanding."
For the CNMC, the company has committed two abuses of its dominant position from at least January 1, 2019 to the present by imposing several inequitable commercial conditions on hotels located in the south of the island in the context from all over Spain that use their reservation intermediation services and restrict competition from other online travel agencies that offer the same services. Acts as an online travel agency. Through its website, it is an intermediary between the hotels, which offer their rooms, and the clients, who are looking for a hotel, compare prices and make their reservations.
Charges a commission to the hotel calculated on the amount of reservations through Booking.com and has a hotel inventory, which is provided directly by the hotels under General Contracting Conditions that the hotels must sign with Booking.com . Adhering to them is mandatory to appear on the Booking website and application. Other agencies, such as eDreams or Lastminute, have hotel inventories provided by other travel agencies or, in the case of Logitravel, by wholesale suppliers.
The CNMC denounces that "a price clause prevents them from offering their rooms on their own websites below the price they offer on Booking.com, at the same time that Booking.com reserves the right to unilaterally reduce the price that hotels offer through the Booking website or application" and adds that "several clauses by which only the English version of the General Contract Conditions (GDT) of Booking.com, the law applicable to the GDT is that of the Netherlands and the competent courts are those of Amsterdam in the event of a conflict between the parties."
The use of the total number of reservations of a hotel through Booking.com as a positioning criterion in the default results list of Booking.com. This encourages hotels to concentrate their online reservations only through Booking.com, preventing competitors from entering or expanding in the market.
The CNMC imposes Booking.com two fines of 206.620.000 euros for each of the single and continuous violations of abuse of dominant position: the imposition of a series of unfair commercial conditions on hotels located in Spain and the restriction of competition from other travel agencies online when offering online reservation intermediation services to hotels located in Spain, respectively. The total penalty is 413.240.000 euros. Besides, le imposes several behavioral obligations to ensure that neither the conduct that gave rise to the violations, nor others that may produce an equivalent effect, continue in the future. A contentious-administrative appeal may be filed directly against this resolution before the National Court.
