Another legal front is opening for Booking.com, after the European Commission announced yesterday that it had launched formal proceedings to investigate whether the platform has breached its obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA), focusing on fraudulent accommodation listings, phishing scams and the transparency of promoted listings.
The latest development adds to the company’s existing legal challenges, foremost among them its dispute with European hoteliers over parity clauses, as well as an investigation by the Greek Competition Commission into its commercial practices in the online hotel booking market.
If breaches of the DSA are found, Booking.com could face a fine of up to 6% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the provider concerned in the previous financial year, under the European regulatory framework.
This percentage is the maximum penalty provided for, not a predetermined sanction, since the opening of an investigation does not imply that a breach has been established.
The Commission’s announcement coincided with a Booking.com event scheduled to present new data on the Greek market. Asked about the Commission’s new investigation during a presentation of the company’s performance in Greece, Alessandro Callari, Booking.com’s Regional Manager for Greece, Italy and the Southern Mediterranean, said he had been informed of the development only a few hours earlier and was therefore not yet in a position to present the company’s official response.
He noted, however, that Booking.com is co-operating with the European Commission and is willing to provide information about the steps it takes to protect its partners and users.
What the Commission is investigating
The formal proceedings announced by the European Commission focus on three main areas.
The first concerns fraudulent or non-compliant listings on the platform, such as offers for non-existent accommodation and cases of impersonation. The Commission will examine whether Booking.com has adequately assessed the relevant risks and taken effective steps to mitigate them.
The second area concerns phishing scams, with a focus on how booking and guest data are shared with accommodation providers, as well as how the platform’s messaging service operates. The aim is to establish whether adequate safeguards are in place to prevent the misuse of data and the sending of fraudulent payment requests to travellers.
The third area concerns the transparency of promoted listings. Specifically, the Commission will investigate whether users are clearly informed when an accommodation appears higher in search results because its provider pays a higher commission, and whether they know who is funding that promotion.
The Commission may request further information, carry out inspections or accept commitments from the company to address the issues under investigation. It has made clear, however, that the launch of proceedings does not prejudge their final outcome.
The legal dispute with hoteliers
A separate front is Booking.com’s legal dispute with European hoteliers over parity clauses, which restricted accommodation providers’ ability to offer lower prices through their own websites.
A key development was the ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in September 2024, which found that the clauses in question could not automatically be regarded as necessary restrictions exempt from competition rules. The ruling does not, however, amount to an award of damages in its own right.
As part of the Europe-wide action, more than 15,000 hotels had registered with the compensation claims initiative by August 2025, according to HOTREC, the European organisation representing the hospitality industry.
The collective action was filed at the Amsterdam District Court in January 2026, with thousands of hotels taking part and the possibility of further expansion of the proceedings.
Greek businesses are also taking part, with more than 1,000 Greek hoteliers having joined the initiative by November 2025. The Hellenic Chamber of Hotels is supporting the claim.
Commenting on the legal dispute, Alessandro Callari said he was optimistic about its outcome and argued that the nature of the parity clauses was being misinterpreted. He also reiterated that around 3,000 partners had taken legal action against the company, a figure which, he said, represented 0.1% of the platform’s approximately 2.3 million partners in Europe.
Recent changes to relations with hoteliers
Booking.com adopted significant changes to its relationships with partner hotels at the end of September, following regulatory dialogue with the European Commission as part of its compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
After abolishing contractual parity clauses in 2024, the platform introduced additional measures, ensuring that prices offered by hotels outside Booking.com do not affect their ranking in the main search results or their participation in preferred visibility programmes. The changes apply to partner accommodation providers in the European Economic Area.
In particular, the company stopped taking into account prices offered by accommodation providers on other sales channels when assessing their potential participation in Booking Sponsored Benefit (BSB, the programme through which Booking can offer travellers a lower price by funding the discount itself), while increasing transparency around the criteria for its Genius, Preferred and Preferred Plus programmes.
It also removed the “competitive” and “not competitive” labels for prices outside the platform from the Extranet, the online platform through which partner accommodation providers manage their presence on Booking.com.
The pending case before the Hellenic Competition Commission
Separately from the European changes, the Competition Commission’s investigation in Greece remains open. It began following a complaint by the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels in 2022.
The authority is examining possible abuse of a dominant position in the online hotel booking market, focusing on practices related to the ranking of accommodation providers and preferred visibility programmes.
In July 2026, a proposed set of commitments by Booking.com was put to public consultation, while in September the Commission announced that the company was adopting additional transparency measures.
The Greek proceedings are still pending, however, as these changes do not prejudge the Competition Commission’s final decision.
The economic footprint in Greece
Significant economic activity in Greece is linked to travel booked through Booking.com, according to the study “Economic Impact Supported by Booking.com in Europe 2025”, prepared by Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company, on behalf of the platform.
The study estimates that the total economic output associated with this travel activity in Greece reached €15.2 billion in 2025, with its contribution to Greek GDP put at €8.1 billion.
Direct travel spending amounted to €7.8 billion, including visitors’ spending on food and drink, transport, entertainment and shopping, in addition to accommodation.
According to the same study, this activity supported 153,000 jobs, of which 84,000 were direct, while total employee compensation was estimated at €2.5 billion and tax revenues at €3.4 billion.
These figures reflect the wider economic footprint of travel linked to the platform, not Booking.com’s revenue or new jobs created solely by its operations.
Despite the positive trend in tourism demand, Greek hospitality businesses continue to face pressure from higher operating costs. According to figures presented for the Greek market, 21% of businesses expect to increase investment in 2026 compared with 2025, while almost a third expect to invest less.
Finally, extending the tourist season is emerging as one of the opportunities for growth. A separate Censuswide survey of 500 executives at Greek accommodation businesses found that 55% had observed travel shifting to different times of the year.