Booking.com’s Hotel Rate Practices Get Slapped Down in Germany
Photo Credit: Hotels in Germany are now free to offer lower rates on their own websites than they give to online travel agencies. Pictured is the Midtown Grill at the Berlin Marriott. Berlin Marriott
Skift Take
The German regulator's ruling to reject Booking.com's reformed hotel rate practices as not going far enough could be a landmark decision if it holds up upon appeal and if other European countries follow Germany's lead. Booking.com may have the leverage to inhibit hotel partners from getting carried away on discounting but the ruling is a victory for consumers nonetheless.
Booking.com is in the process of rewriting a whole bunch of hotel contracts in Germany.
That's because the German competition authority, Bundeskartellamt, ordered the company to ensure that its hotel partners are free to charge lower rates on their own websites than they give to Booking.com and others.
In so doing, the Germany regulator struck down in Germany an earlier reform of the rate parity clauses -- established by Booking.com and Expedia across most of Europe -- that allowed hotels to offer lower rates to various online travel agencies although not on the hotel websites.
In throwing out in Germany the so-called narrow rate parity clauses that were approved in France, I
