Dhaka, April 10 -- The German Hotel Association (IHA) is supporting a class-action lawsuit brought by around 2,000 hotels against the popular booking portal Booking.com at the Berlin Regional Court. The association justified its commitment to help hoteliers to their rights in court.
Since 2004 till now, Booking.com has applied best-price clauses with which it prevented affiliated hotels from offering rooms at lower rates through any other distribution channel. With these clauses, Booking.com shielded its business model against any competition in violation of antitrust law, which ultimately allowed the company to collect booking commissions of up to 50 per cent of the room rate from hoteliers.
Hoteliers were overcharged and harmed by the b...