For the record. On Monday, 28 September 2026 the European Commission published a factsheet, “How the DMA ensures businesses using Booking.com are free to set their prices on and off Booking.com”. The same day HOTREC, the association of hotels, restaurants and cafes in Europe, published its review of the measures. Hotel News Resource republished the HOTREC statement verbatim under the HOTREC byline on 28 September 2026. The factsheet carries the names of the Commission Directorate-General for Competition and the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology.
What the Commission recorded as changed
Booking.com no longer looks at prices outside Booking.com when deciding whether a property is potentially eligible for Booking Sponsored Benefit. The change applies to all properties in the European Economic Area. Under BSB, Booking.com lowers the price shown to the customer and pays the difference itself, while the hotel receives the full amount for the rate it set and its agreed commission stays unchanged.
The Commission recorded further transparency items. Providers have more performance and reservation-level data on how BSB affects bookings for their properties. Booking.com expanded its explanations of the Genius, Preferred and Preferred Plus programmes, including their eligibility criteria, the role and working of the performance score, geographic benchmarking, and the conditions under which participation may be suspended. External price scans on the Extranet are now described as information only. The “competitive” and “non-competitive” labels have been removed from the Extranet. Booking.com enhanced the ranking information on its Partner Hub, and it has undertaken to reflect the change in an update to its General Delivery Terms, in particular Annex 4 on Ranking, later this year.
The obligation the measures sit under
Article 5(3) of the Digital Markets Act forbids Booking.com from preventing business users from offering the same products or services to end users through third-party channels or through their own direct online sales channel at different prices or conditions. In practical terms, accommodation providers may set different prices, availability, inventory or commercial conditions on other channels, including their own websites, without facing measures that restrict that freedom. Parity clauses, the Commission notes, are contractual rules that stop a hotel offering better terms on channels other than the platform imposing them.
The prior state matters to the sequence. Booking.com removed contractual parity requirements from its EEA General Delivery Terms in July 2024, and at the same time dropped parity as an eligibility criterion from Genius, Preferred and Preferred Plus in the EEA. Before September 2026, external prices were already excluded from default ranking and from the eligibility assessment for those programmes. They remained a factor only for BSB eligibility.
Scope and enforcement
The Commission designated Booking Holdings as a gatekeeper for its online intermediation service Booking.com, and Booking.com has needed to comply with the relevant DMA obligations since 14 November 2024. The September 2026 measures apply across the European Economic Area.
National authorities share enforcement with Brussels. The Commission records its cooperation and coordination through the European Competition Network with the Greek, Italian and Spanish national competition authorities, which it says have investigated or are investigating Booking.com practices. The Commission states that the voluntary changes made after the regulatory dialogue are without prejudice to proceedings by Member State authorities or any other competent authority. The public version of Booking.com latest compliance report is available on the Commission DMA webpage.
What HOTREC says it will watch
HOTREC recorded that the sector “will now need time to examine their implementation in practice and assess their impact on hotels and other accommodation businesses across Europe”. It said it will continue to look at whether accommodation providers can effectively exercise their freedom to determine their own pricing and distribution strategies across different sales channels. It committed to monitor developments, gather feedback from the European hospitality sector and engage with the Commission as the practical implications become clearer. It also recorded that a constructive dialogue between the Commission, designated gatekeepers and affected business users remains important.
The market context HOTREC brings
HOTREC framed the review against its European Hotel Distribution Study 2026, published 15 September 2026. The study, based on information from 2,713 hotels, found that 85.4% of OTA bookings in Europe go through Booking Holdings and Expedia Group, with Booking Holdings alone at 68.8%. Direct bookings with the hotel accounted for 51.3% of all bookings, and OTAs for 29.9%. HOTREC used the study to call for effective enforcement of the Digital Markets Act and for the EU to preserve the transparency and fairness protections of the Platform-to-Business Regulation.
Items the two documents leave open
The factsheet describes commission only in passing, as a cost a direct booking avoids. The document sets out no commission levels or structures. HOTREC's stated concern is pricing and distribution freedom across sales channels, and the time the sector needs to assess how the measures work. The General Delivery Terms update, including Annex 4 on Ranking, is due later this year. The Commission characterises the changes as voluntary, following regulatory dialogue. No formal non-compliance decision was issued, and the Member State proceedings stand untouched.