On 25 September 2023, the EU Commission blocked Booking's proposed acquisition of eTraveli under the EU Merger Regulation. The decision was made due to concerns that the acquisition would strengthen Booking's dominant position in the European hotel online travel agency (OTA) market, potentially leading to higher costs for hotels and consumers. Despite Booking's proposed remedies, which included displaying multiple hotel offers from competing OTAs, the Commission found these measures inadequate to effectively address the competition concerns. The EU Commission states that Booking is a leading hotel OTA with a market share of over 60% in the European Economic Area (EEA), while eTraveli is a major provider of flight OTA services in Europe. The transaction would have allowed Booking to expand its travel services ecosystem, potentially diverting demand from more cost-effective sales channels to Booking and reinforcing network effects. This would have made it more challenging for competing OTAs to establish a customer base capable of supporting a hotel OTA business.
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