BEIJING – China’s top market regulator has issued a combined penalty of nearly 5.2 billion yuan, equivalent to around $765 million, against Trip.com Group, the operator of the country’s largest online travel platform, following a finding that the company engaged in persistent monopolistic business practices, the agency announced Saturday.
Trip.com, which manages well-known travel brands including domestic booking platform Ctrip and global flight search engine Skyscanner, violated anti-monopoly rules by leveraging its dominant market position to stifle industry competition, according to an official statement released by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR).
The regulator’s investigation, which was launched in January of this year, traced the company’s anti-competitive behavior back to as early as 2020. Over the following years, the platform implemented a series of restrictive practices to lock in market share: it struck exclusive cooperation agreements with partner hotels, granted preferential algorithmic traffic placement to these properties, and barred participating hotels from working with rival online travel platforms. In addition, Trip.com compelled hotels that maintained listings across multiple platforms to guarantee the lowest publicly available online room rates exclusively on its own site, the regulator confirmed.
Under the penalty order, SAMR has confiscated more than 1.6 billion yuan ($245 million) in illegal gains earned from the anti-competitive practices, levied an additional fine of more than 3.5 billion yuan ($520 million), and ordered the company to refund roughly 122 million yuan ($18 million) in withheld fees collected from partner hotel operators.
SAMR concluded that Trip.com’s conduct effectively eliminated and constrained fair market competition, restricted hotels’ ability to operate freely across multiple platforms, undermined hoteliers’ independent pricing rights, and ultimately damaged the interests of consumers booking travel through the platform.
In an official statement released shortly after the penalty announcement, Trip.com acknowledged the regulator’s ruling and confirmed it would fully comply with the order. The company said it would “sincerely accept” the penalty, and committed to systematically rolling out targeted rectification measures one by one to ensure full implementation of all regulatory requirements.