Regulating predatory practices is not the same as destroying a company. And if it happens to be the same, then that's probably a good thing.
I have my problems with many things EU, but that hotels are allowed to provide cheaper prices themselves is just good for both the hotel and the guest.
There is nothing predatory that I know of booking.com's practices. I know that hackers have a categorical hostility towards any large company (but not towards large governments or large banks of course), but could you explain what Booking.com does wrong?
Are they supposed to provide a central search engine with availability and reviews and a large customer base for free to any hotel owner? And when any guest makes a booking, the hotel owner sends them a message "Hey, cancel your reservation on booking and book with me instead and I'll give you a little discount." I guess hackers think that is marvellous, but how is that fair to booking? It is the hotels that ask to be on booking, they are free to do without and many do with great success.
Awaiting the responses saying "The government should provide an online booking platform and ban all others".
I used to be a hotel manager. Now I work in almost direct competition to booking. Booking is not a racket, you are free to not use them if you don't like them and you are free to take rooms away from booking if you want to limit how much they can sell. The hotel has compete control of how they use booking.
Your job as a hotel manager is to do what you can to increase direct reservations and reduce booking.com's share of your total reservations. But the reality is that most are too lazy or incompetent to make guests comfortable to book directly instead of through booking. Some hotels are even so donkey brained that they offer better rates on booking than on their own website. Then cry to regulators?
No, the Regulation (in this case) is the predatory practice, which is destroying companies. There's a reason the EU doesn't have many successful companies.
DMA is the problem, it's not "that hotels are allowed to provide cheaper prices themselves". DMA does not regulate (or provide) that "hotels are allowed to provide cheaper prices themselves" because hotels were always allowed to do this.
Even I admit that DMA has a couple good things, but it is overwhelmed by the bad. DMA goes way, way too far and it causes destruction.
EU policies are extremely overbearing, arrogant and totalitarian. This is destroying business.
So what are the concrete problems with the DMA? I do not know it well enough but as a EU citizen and small business owner I am generally very happy with other EU regulations.
Number 1: Booking.com has never prevented hotels from providing booking through other sites.
Number 2: Booking.com has always demanded that any room sold by them cannot be cheaper anywhere else. Every third party seller demands this. Hint: You don't have to sell all of your rooms through booking.
This rule could destroy booking.com depending on how it is enforced, since hotels could then just use them as a free advertising platform.
Number 3: Seems fair.
Number 4: They've always done this.
Number 5: They don't own any hotels AFAIK
Number 6: What do they mean?
All in all, it seems the regulators do not understand at all what they are regulating. After decades of online reservations being the norm, hotels should only blame themselves if they've become dependent on third parties such as booking.
I'm not going to get into the specifics of DMA on this one case. DMA is like a labyrinth of legal disaster, I'm not even going to get started lost in it right now.
This all sounds very good for open markets and capitalism. As a consumer I should benefit, and well-run hotels too, I suppose, if I were ever to stay in one.
These regulations should have been done decades ago. Now these lead to corporations growing abnormally big with immense power to corrupt policymakers and help them create regulatory capture.
It's great that EU sees some sense and does not give in to the temptation of easy money from big corporations.
Just because my opinions aren't popular, doesn't mean I'm not capable of giving good answers. Or you're the bandwagon guy who just likes who's most popular then??
Would you rather be forced to scour a dozen hotel sites individually to find a place to stay? Arguably "Middle men like Hotels.com etc" are providing a valuable service by allowing consumers to comparison shop in one place. Unless you think such sites should be government funded, it's only fair that they charge a fee for their service.
But does it destroy any non-predatory businesses? If other people here are correct it should be trivial for Booking to comply since they are already almost compliant.
Looking into it further, it seems booking.com is only "sort of European". Booking.com (headquartered in Amsterdam) is actually owned by Booking Holdings (an American company), which seems to have originated as Priceline, which then bought booking.com and renamed/restructured itself into Booking Holdings and owns Priceline, kayak, booking.com, Agoda and a bunch of other airline/hotel aggregators.
That goes for a lot of companies operating out of NL though.
They're there mostly for tax and stock issuing reason, but tend to be majority owned and managed by some US VC/PE/investment group or other kinds of foreign entities who need a EU HQ.
It's what makes the NL jobs (and housing) market so hot.
I think in this case booking.com was founded in Amsterdam and were purchased by an American company at some point and they aren't there just for tax reasons. I guess it is possible it is the reason they stay there, though!
No this happens a lot. The only reason is tax benefits. They do need an office with alike 10 employees and a flower in it though (to ensure there are actually people there lol), but that’s about it.
So they either stay in NL, or do some sandwich with London or Dublin. It helps that the main Dutch party VVD is completely corrupt and only in there to enrich themselves.
>the main Dutch party VVD is completely corrupt and only in there to enrich themselves
I dunno what your yardstick is in NL, but everywhere else I lived and have friends, every major political party is there only to enrich themselves and their lobbyists, and not to aid the people voting for them.
Canada, Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, you name it, same shit everywhere: privatize the winnings socialize the losses, while praising the GPD went up 0,2% while your salary staid the same and housing went up 10%.
Well in NL there is a socialist party, they all only get minimum wage and pay back everything else to the party, but they of course are too idealistic and not very pragmatic so people don’t vote for them.
Most parties have some corruption, but on general try to also help the country. Just not the VVD
You keep going on about "destruction" without even explaining what specifically is happening here that is so bad that booking.com will be unable to continue operating?
I'm talking about the fines and fines and fines that EU has been levying on business in general and the DMA is just another window into that. I'm not talking about just booking.com