Almost 1100 Dutch hotels want compensation from Booking.com

This article was last updated on August 29, 2025

Canada: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…

Almost 1100 Dutch hotels want compensation from Booking.com

Nearly 1100 Dutch hotels have joined a European Massaclaim to Booking.com, Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN) told the NOS. The hotels want compensation because they were not allowed to offer an overnight stay on their own site cheaper than on Booking.com.

Hotels can join the Massaclaim up to and including today. More than 15,000 hotels have reported throughout Europe, says the European industry organization Hotrec.

It is unclear how it will continue now. KHN cannot say at the moment whether she will go to court. If it comes to a lawsuit, it will probably be fed in the Netherlands: the headquarters of Booking is in Amsterdam.

Booking.com says it will challenge the claim in that case. “We are not going to reach a settlement,” a spokesperson told the NOS about the current state of affairs. No case has yet been submitted. “We haven’t seen anything yet.”

‘Arrogant and Regentenk’

One of the hotels that participates in the claim is Grand Hotel de Draak in Bergen op Zoom. “Booking has proven quite a lot of services internationally, you can’t deny that,” says owner Frans Hazen.

“Only, the bigger and more powerful they became, the more they lost contact with hotels. And they are more arrogant, regentensk, drawing up rules that were more to protect their business than a mutual, reciprocal revenue model.”

Use for free

“For their visibility, hotels are highly dependent on platforms such as Booking.com,” says Koninklijke Horeca Nederland. Guests know how to find the hotels via the booking site. In exchange, the hotels pay a fee if an overnight stay through Booking has been booked.

Booking says that the company had good reasons to demand that hotels were not allowed to offer an overnight stay on their own site than on Booking.com.

“Hotels can use our platform for free to reach guests,” says the spokesperson. “But it was not the intention to then offer the room cheaper on your own website. Otherwise we will not have a viable revenue model.”

No price limitations

The mass claim for hoteliers has been set up after a judgment from the Court of Justice of the European Union from almost a year ago. It stated that Booking.com was not allowed to impose price limitations.

KHN and the European Organization HOTREC state that hotel owners can demand 30 percent or more of that amount. “Hotels must be able to demonstrate the agreements to have a chance of compensation,” says Jeroen van Hezewijk, researcher European compensation law at Radboud University. “That is possible with a contract, for example.”

Booking.com no longer demands from hotels that they do not offer their rooms cheaper on their own site. According to the Booking spokesperson, that has not changed much for hotels. “The requirement has disappeared, but things just continue.”

Share article: