This Monday, the European Commission prohibited the purchase of the eTraveli flight booking platform by the Booking Accommodation website, the eleventh acquisition vetoed by Brussels, considering that it would reinforce the dominant position in this market, affecting community competition.
In a statement, the community executive states that it prohibited the operation under EU merger regulations, arguing that “the acquisition would have allowed Booking to reinforce its dominant position in the market of online travel agencies for hotel reservations in the Economic Area. European”.
Brussels emphasizes that “today’s decision is a consequence of an in-depth investigation by the Commission into the operation that would have combined Booking and eTraveli, two of the main providers” of the online travel agency market, respectively in accommodation and flight reservations. .
Furthermore, this North American reserves platform “did not propose sufficient corrective measures to address these concerns,” he adds.
Established in the United States, a company in addition to Booking.com (booking platform) with the brands Rentalcars, Priceline and Agoda, as entities for car rental and travel through the Kayak business (including the brands Kayak, Momondo, Cheapflights, HotelsCombined , among other).
Ao function mainly as an intermediary between clients and private accommodations and hotels, to Booking tem, today, a market share greater than 60% in the market of the ‘online’ travel agencies of the European Economic Area, após o crecimento nos last years.
For its part, the Swedish eTraveli is active in the same market through its brands Gotogate, My Trip, Seat24 and SuperSaver, focused mainly on flight booking.
“The Commission considered that the operation would have reinforced Booking’s dominant position in the market of organized hotel travel agencies, which would translate into higher costs for hotels and, possibly, for consumers,” the institution notes.
Among the ‘remedies’ proposed by Booking was “showing flight customers a choice screen on the flight check-out page, which is the page shown to travelers after purchasing their plane tickets.”
However, according to the community executive, “the corrective measures proposed by Booking did not adequately respond to the Commission’s concerns regarding competition, such as to allow it to be concluded that competition would be preserved on a lasting basis.”
The operation was notified to the Commission on October 10, 2022 and, in November of that year, an in-depth investigation was opened.
In the last 10 years, the Commission has approved almost 3,500 mergers between companies operating in the EU.
Today’s ban is the eleventh merger that the Commission has blocked in this period.
Source: TSF
