China fines Trip.com $765 million for forcing hotels into exclusive deals and controlling their prices

China’s market regulator fined Trip.com Group $765 million on Saturday after concluding that the country’s largest online travel platform abused its dominant market position. The State Administration for Market Regulation said Trip.com used its traffic allocation algorithms, platform rules and technology to restrict hotel operators from listing on competing services and to control the prices they could charge. The penalty, totaling roughly five billion yuan, includes confiscated gains, a separate fine and an order to refund hotel security deposits.

SAMR launched the investigation in January after receiving complaints that Trip.com was forcing hotel partners into exclusive arrangements and demanding they offer their lowest online rates only on its platform. The regulator found the company had engaged in these practices since 2020, leveraging its control of about 56 percent of China’s online travel market to pressure operators who depended on it for visibility and bookings. Trip.com said in a statement on its official WeChat account that it accepts the decision and will implement rectification measures.

The fine is the largest antitrust penalty SAMR has imposed on a single Chinese tech company since it fined Alibaba 18 billion yuan in 2021 for similar abuse of market dominance. That case, which forced Alibaba to abandon exclusive dealing arrangements with merchants, set the template for Beijing’s broader crackdown on platform monopolies. The Trip.com penalty signals that the regulator’s appetite for enforcement has not waned, even as Beijing has shifted its messaging toward calibrated oversight rather than blanket crackdowns.

The case also reflects regulators’ concern that fierce competition among online travel platforms has been squeezing hotel operators’ margins and contributing to deflationary pressure in parts of the Chinese economy. Beijing has been rewriting its e-commerce law to bring platform companies under tighter domestic oversight, with draft amendments published earlier this month proposing expanded regulatory tools for overseeing algorithms, traffic rules and pricing practices. Trip.com’s penalty lands squarely within that framework.

Founded in 1999, Trip.com operates through brands including Ctrip and Skyscanner and has grown into the world’s largest online booking platform by transaction volume. Its dominance in China gave it leverage to dictate terms to hotel partners, but that same market power made it a regulatory target as Beijing moved to curb what it views as monopolistic behaviour across its technology sector. The company has been ordered to undertake a comprehensive rectification plan, though the specifics of those changes have not yet been disclosed.

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