Booking.com's parent company facing massive fine from Spanish regulator

The Spanish competition regulator CNMC wants to issue the parent company of Booking.com a fine of 490 million euros for abusing its dominance in the market. The fine has not been published yet, but the internet company for hotel bookings has been told it is coming. Booking.com is planning on challenging the punishment.

The Spanish regulator has been investigating Booking.com for a while because there was suspicion of unfair practices towards some hotels and travel organizations in the country. "We are disappointed with the CNMC's draft decision and strongly disagree with the findings," a Booking.com spokesperson said after earlier reporting by Het Financieele Dagblad. "We intend to appeal this unprecedented decision in Spain if it becomes final."

This is the second financial setback for Booking.com in a short space of time. At the end of last month, it was announced that the company must join a pension fund for the travel industry in the Netherlands. The group resisted this and sees itself primarily as a technology platform. But the court in The Hague disagreed. That ruling also resulted in additional costs of hundreds of millions of euros.

Both setbacks were included in the quarterly numbers the parent company, Booking Holdings, presented on Thursday. The company saw its quarterly earnings plummet by 82 percent compared to last year to 222 million dollars.

The number of bookings was up by nine percent, and the turnover was close to eighteen percent, to 4,8 billion dollars. The numbers could have been better were it not for the war in the Middle East. According to Booking, the conflict between Israel and Hamas resulted in fewer hotel rooms and other accommodations being reserved in that part of the world.