Booking.com ordered to cut Swiss hotel commissions by 25%
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Booking.com ordered to cut Swiss hotel commissions by 25%
Switzerland’s price watchdog has ruled that Booking.com’s commission rates for hotels in the country are excessive. It’s ordered the online travel giant to cut them by nearly 25%. Booking.com has hit back, saying it disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal to the Federal Administrative Court.
+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
The regulator has found that Booking.com falls under the country’s price monitoring law and was charging excessive fees. It approached the company to address the issue, but “intensive negotiations” were unsuccessful.
+ How the government is regulating Airbnb in Switzerland
As a result, Booking.com has been ordered to cut its commission rates by an average of nearly 25%. The company has three months to comply once the ruling comes into force. The measure is temporary and will remain in place for three years.
Booking.com says it plans to appeal the ruling. The company told the Keystone-SDA news agency that its customers are free to list their accommodation on the platform, and it doesn’t agree with the commission cut for what it describes as a purely optional service.
No immediate changes to Booking.com’s commission rates
The company argues that its commission reflects the significant value it brings to accommodation partners. “No changes to our commission rates will be made while the appeal process is ongoing,” the platform added.
The American group’s pricing practices have come under scrutiny several times in the past. Around three years ago, the Swiss parliament banned booking platforms like Booking.com from including price-fixing clauses in their contracts with hotels.
This means hotels are free to offer better deals on their own websites than those listed on the platform. The European Court of Justice backed this approach in a ruling last September.
Translated from German with DeepL/sp
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
More
Why Switzerland is among the ten fastest-warming countries in the world
More
In Switzerland four out of ten people have a migrant background – who are they?
More
Suicides in Switzerland quadruple among older people
More
French gangs target luxury cars in Switzerland
More
Renewed controversy in Switzerland over US fighter jets – explained
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.