Booking.com
Designated in the first round as a travel marketplace.
- Tier
- VLOP — very large online platform
- Provider
- Booking.com B.V.
- Sector
- Travel
- Designated
- 25 April 2023
- Obligations from
- 25 August 2023
- EU users at designation
- Over 45 million
- Formal proceedings
- None to date
- Court challenges
- None
Designated 25 April 2023 on a declared figure above the 45 million threshold.
Like the App Store, Booking.com carries both DSA marketplace duties and, separately, gatekeeper obligations under the Digital Markets Act.
A marketplace with a gatekeeper designation alongside
A travel booking platform lets consumers conclude distance contracts with traders, so the Article 30 to 32 marketplace duties apply in full: accommodation providers are traders whose identity must be collected and verified, the interface must let them comply with their own obligations, and buyers must be told when something illegal was sold to them.
The Article 34 assessment covers ranking and presentation — how availability, pressure cues and ordering shape consumer decisions — alongside the illegal-listings question.
The same service is separately designated as a gatekeeper core platform service under the Digital Markets Act, a distinct regime with its own enforcement.
- Articles 30–32
- Trader traceability, compliance by design, and the right to information.
- Separate regime
- Digital Markets Act gatekeeper obligations.
Booking.com timeline
- 25 April 2023 Designated a VLOP by Commission decision.
- 25 August 2023 Articles 33 to 43 begin to apply, four months after notification.
What Booking.com has to do
Designation applies the asymmetric obligations in Articles 33 to 43. They are the same for every designated service, read against a platform surface. Terms used on this page are collected in the glossary.
- Article 34 Systemic risk assessment
- Article 35 Mitigation of risks
- Article 37 Independent audit
- Article 38 Recommender systems without profiling
- Article 39 Advertising repository
- Article 40 Data access for the Commission and vetted researchers
- Article 41 Internal compliance function
- Article 42 Transparency reporting
- Article 43 Supervisory fee
Related designations
Designated on the same day (25 April 2023): Google Search, Bing, YouTube, Google Play, Google Maps, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon Store, Wikipedia, TikTok, Pinterest, App Store, X, AliExpress, Snapchat, Zalando, Google Shopping, LinkedIn.