Spanish regulator fines Booking.com $448.5M

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - Spain’s market regulator announced on Tuesday that it is fining hotel platform Booking.com €413.24 million ($447.51 million) for unfair business practices.

The regulator says the platform has been “abusing its dominant position” since at least Jan. 1, 2019 by imposing unfair conditions on Spanish hotels and restricting competition from other online travel agencies.

This is the biggest fine the Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has ever levied against a business.

Booking.com is a Dutch company and one of the largest online travel agencies in the world.

According to the CNMC, Booking.com controls between 70% to 90% of the Spanish hotel market.

The CNMC said its investigation, which began in 2022, identified several ways in which the company harms both Spanish hotels and other travel agencies.

For instance, it blocks hotels from offering lower rates than Booking.com, while the platform can unilaterally reduce prices. The investigation also found a lack of transparency about what happens when hotels subscribe to programs like Genius, which are supposed to improve their positioning on the platforms.

The CNMC says Booking.com squeezes out competitors by incentivizing hotels to list all the rooms on the platform. It also sways hotels from concentrating their sales on the platform in exchange for better rankings or access to programs, according to the Spanish regulator.

Besides the fine, the ruling forces Booking.com to comply with several new obligations to ensure it will stop “abusing” its market position.

In 2021, two major Spanish hotel associations denounced the company for unfair practices.

The company has two months to appeal.