A new legislative proposal will allow the Netherlands-based online travel agency Booking.com to resume full operations in Turkey.
The AKP parliamentary group is set to submit a tourism bill to parliament, the pro-government newspaper Yeni Şafak reported. The draft was prepared following requests from the Tourism Ministry. The current minister owns multiple luxury hotels along with online travel and tourism platforms.
Booking.com’s domestic booking services were suspended by a Turkish court in March 2017 following a lawsuit filed by the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TÜRSAB). TÜRSAB alleged unfair competition, stating the platform was selling domestic hotel stays to Turkish citizens without fulfilling local regulatory obligations. At the time, although TÜRSAB Secretary General Çetin Gürcün said the lawsuit began in 2015, the court's ruling coincided with a 2017 diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the Netherlands.
The crisis erupted after Dutch authorities barred then-Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu from campaigning among the Turkish diaspora in the Netherlands for the 2017 referendum on Turkey’s constitutional changes. Then Family Minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya was also prevented from entering the Turkish Consulate in Rotterdam. Both nations subsequently withdrew their ambassadors.
Since 2017, users inside Turkey have been blocked from booking domestic Turkish hotels on Booking.com. Users can currently only use the site to book accommodation abroad.
The new bill aims to remove these legal barriers and settle the unfair competition issues. If passed, Booking.com will be permitted to offer domestic accommodation reservations to users within Turkey once again.
