China issues major antitrust fine to Trip.com

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation has imposed a major administrative penalty on Trip.com Group over its conduct in the domestic online hotel-booking market. The regulator ordered the company to forfeit 1.658 billion yuan in illegal gains and to pay a fine of 3.521 billion yuan. This brings the total financial penalty to 5.179 billion yuan, representing a significant enforcement action against one of the country’s largest online travel platforms.

In addition to the fine and forfeiture of alleged illegal gains, the regulator instructed Trip.com to refund 122 million yuan in booking deposits. These deposits were described as funds that had been withheld from hotel operators. The combination of financial sanctions and mandated refunds underscores the breadth of the measures imposed on the company.

SAMR concluded that Trip.com had abused a dominant position in China’s online hotel-booking market since 2020. The investigation found that the company used traffic-allocation mechanisms, platform rules and technical measures in ways that affected how hotels could work with competing platforms. These tools were used to induce some hotels to engage in exclusive cooperation with Trip.com’s platforms.

The regulator also found that Trip.com required certain hotel partners to offer their lowest online room rates on its platforms. SAMR said these practices harmed competition by limiting hotels’ ability to operate across multiple platforms and to set prices independently. The conduct was viewed as restricting market choice for hotel operators and potentially affecting price dynamics in the online booking sector.

As part of the enforcement outcome, Trip.com has been directed not only to pay the penalties but also to reform aspects of its business model. The company said it “sincerely accepts” the ruling and will comply with the regulator’s requirements. It indicated that it will implement rectification measures in response to the findings of abuse of market dominance.

The required rectifications are expected to address the traffic-allocation, platform rule and technical practices highlighted by SAMR. Changes are likely to affect how hotels participate on Trip.com’s platforms and how rates and distribution arrangements are structured. The enforcement action signals closer scrutiny of competitive behavior in China’s online travel and hotel-booking markets.