Digital
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15 September 2021
European Commission hints at specific initiative for establishing and enforcing STR rental rules
Closing the regulatory enforcement gap for short-term rentals (STR), rentals have counted among the key debates held on the Digital Services Act (DSA), with discussions on the adoption of this future Regulation in full swing in the European Institutions.
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15 September 2021
Draft competition rules on vertical agreements fail to address unfair restrictions for hoteliers
The European Commission published a draft revised Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER) alongside draft guidelines on 9 July 2021, opening the drafts to comment from stakeholders.
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31 March 2021
European Platform Observatory clearly identifies how OTAs exercise their market dominance
HOTREC notably welcomes the conclusions of the Analytical paper: “Multi-homing: obstacles, opportunities, facilitating factors”. It extensively covers how and why, despite the fact that hotels can ‘multi-home’ on several OTA platforms, the benefits of such multihoming are limited for hotels, exposing the many ways in which OTAs exert their market power over hoteliers, including imposing price parity clauses and only sharing limited data with hotels about guests.
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31 March 2021
HOTREC underlines negative effects of narrow price parity clauses in reply to consultation on Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER)
The European Commission opened a public consultation on the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER) at the end of 2020, as the current set of rules will expire in May 2022 and will need to be revised. Hoteliers see the revision of the VBER as a major opportunity to request end to narrow price parity clauses imposed by OTAs such as Booking.com and Expedia on hoteliers.
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31 March 2021
EU Member States adopt new taxation rules to tackle lost fiscal revenues of sales generated through digital platforms
On 22 March, the Council adopted amendments to the directive on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation in order to address Member States’ loss tax revenue through digital platforms selling goods or providing service and the unfair advantage this creates traditional businesses.
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27 January 2021
European Commission publishes proposals for Digital Services and Markets Acts
On 15 December, the European Commission made two new legislative proposals: the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA). The DSA and DMA will address new challenges that have surfaced with digital developments, and aim to ensure that users, consumers and businesses continue to benefit from digital developments.
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27 January 2021
Booking.com and Expedia commit to aligning practices with EU consumer law
The European Commission announced on 17 December that Booking.com and the Expedia Group have committed to improving the presentation of their accommodation offers, aligning it with EU consumer law.
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27 January 2021
European Commission public consultation on Vertical Block Exemption Regulation
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the revision of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER) and accompanying Vertical Guidelines. This consultation is part of the on-going review process which was initiated in October 2018 with a view to having revised rules in place when the current rules expire in May 2022.
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27 January 2021
European Commission publishes Platform 2 Business Regulation Ranking Transparency Guidelines
On 7 December 2020, the European Commission published the much-awaited Ranking Transparency Guidelines. These guidelines are essential to interpret key provisions of the Regulation 2019/1150 – the so-called Platform to Business Regulation – regarding requirements for online intermediary service and online search engine providers to set out the main parameters that determine ranking and the reasons for the relative importance of those parameters as opposed to other parameters.
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27 January 2021
European Commission opens the floor for feedback on creation of an EU digital levy
On 18 January, the European Commission launched a public consultation on a new digital levy. This initiative aims to ensure fair taxation in the digital economy, while at the same time contributing to Europe's recovery.