Nearly 1,100 Dutch hotels want compensation from Booking.com
Nearly 1,100 Dutch hotels have signed up for a European class action lawsuit against Booking.com, the hospitality association KHN confirmed to NOS. Over 15,000 hotels across Europe have registered. They seek compensation because the booking platform did not allow them to offer their rooms cheaper on their own sites or elsewhere.
The class action stems from a ruling by the European Court of Justice last year, stating that Booking.com was not allowed to impose price restrictions on hotels. Today is the last day for hotels to register to join the mass claim. It is not yet clear when the matter will be taken to court, but any eventual lawsuit will likely happen in the Netherlands. Booking.com’s headquarters are in Amsterdam.
“Hotels rely heavily on platforms like Booking.com for their visibility,” the KHN told NOS. Guests find hotels on the popular site, and in return, the hotels pay a fee when a room is booked through Booking.com.
Grand Hotel De Draak in Bergen op Zoom is one of the hotels that registered for the claim. “Booking has done a great deal of good for the international hotel industry, you can’t deny that,” owner Frans Hazen told NOS. “However, the bigger and more powerful they became, the more they lost touch with hotels. And they became more arrogant and regency-like, creating rules that were more about protecting their business than a mutual, reciprocal revenue model.”
Booking.com told NOS that it had good reason to insist that hotels could not offer cheaper prices elsewhere. “Hotels can use our platform free of charge to reach guests,” a spokesperson said. “But the intention wasn’t to then offer the room cheaper on your own website. Otherwise, we don’t have a viable business model.”
The company will fight the mass claim if it gets filed. “We do not intend to settle.”
Following the European court’s ruling, Booking.com stopped obliging hotels to offer the best price on its platform.
