On Friday 26 August, the European Commission published the results of an external market study on the distribution practices of hotels in the EU.
The market study was conducted in 2021 and covers the period from 2017 to 2021. It focuses on a representative sample of six Member States (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Poland, Spain and Sweden).
The results of the market study do not indicate any significant change in the competitive situation in the hotel accommodation distribution sector in the EU compared to 2016.
In particular:
- Online travel agencies (OTAs) account for 44% of independent hotel room sales, a figure that has increased slightly compared to 2016;
- Booking.com and Expedia remain the leading OTAs for hotel bookings and there is no sign of any significant change in OTA market shares or new OTAs entering the market;
- Commissions paid by hotels to OTAs remained stable or decreased slightly;
- Some OTAs use commercial measures (improvement/reduction of visibility on their website), to encourage hotels to give them the best prices and conditions for rooms;
- The relative importance of hotel sales channels varies to some extent between Member States, but there do not appear to be significant differences in the conditions of competition between OTAs;
- The Austrian and Belgian laws prohibiting the use of broad and narrow parity clauses by OTAs in the hotel sector do not appear to have led to significant changes in hotel distribution practices compared to the other Member States included in the study.
The results of the study will be taken into account by the Commission and the national competition authorities in their ongoing monitoring and enforcement work in the hotel accommodation distribution sector.
Link to the study: https://aeur.eu/f/2tr (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)