The hotel business still suffers financial losses because of the "imposition" of the reservation service Booking terms and conditions of agreement on obligatory provision and observance of price and room parity, as well as terms of interaction with closed user groups, said Alexey Kozhevnikov, vice-president of the "Opora Rossii".

"Now it is important for the hotel industry to execute the instruction of FAS of Russia to abolish both narrow and broad price parity. This is exactly what we are waiting for, as the Russian hotel business still incurs high costs. And, of course, we want Booking not to abuse its dominant position and not to put forward other rules that lead to restriction of competition," Kozhevnikov said.

Recall, antitrust proceedings against the Dutch service began in 2019. Then "Opora Rossii" complained to the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) that the foreign company requires hotels cooperating with it to provide the best prices exclusively to foreign service. It was reported at the time that the hotels were not entitled to offer rooms at a lower price, even if the guest booked a room directly, according to these terms.

Later FAS issued a warning to Booking with a demand to stop violating the RF law "On Protection of Competition". Service ignored the warning, after which an antitrust case was initiated against a foreign company.

On Thursday, the FAS imposed a turnover fine of 1.3 billion rubles on the company. Booking's press service said the company was disappointed with the decision and would appeal, RBC writes.

Made in Russia // Made in Russia

Author: Ksenia Gustova