Digital Markets Act becomes fully applicable

One of the flagship initiatives of the current European Commission – the Digital Markets Act (DMA) – became fully applicable on 2 May 2023. The Law regulating the behaviour and disproportionate power of gatekeeper platforms represents a landmark point for the European hotel industry. Amongst many different business obligations, it also bans narrow price parity clauses, which prevent hoteliers from offering a better price on their own channels than the platform and allows easier access to data generated by hotel listings.

HOTREC looks forward to the designation of market leader for intermediated online hotel sales as gatekeeper and consequent change of its business practices towards hotels.

As highlighted in the 2022 HOTREC hotel distribution study, in fact, “most hoteliers (55%) [in Europe] feel pressured by OTAs to accept platforms terms and conditions (e.g. regarding cancellation policy, special discounts) that hotels would otherwise voluntarily not offer. As expected, the higher the volumes of room nights generated by OTAs in a hotel, the higher the perceived pressure.”