Proposition 54K3164

Projet de loi relatif à la liberté tarifaire des exploitants d'hébergements touristiques dans les contrats conclus avec les opérateurs de plateformes de réservation en ligne.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

June 19, 2018

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

electronic commerce commercial contract Internet unfair terms of contract tourism tourist infrastructure fixing of prices

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI ∉ Open Vld N-VA MR PVDA | PTB PP VB

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Discussion ¶

July 17, 2018 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteurs are Mrs. Lijnen and Mrs. Detiège. I give you the word, Mrs. Detiège.

Mr. Speaker, Dear Ministers, Colleagues, I will explain the report of the committee on behalf of Mrs. Nele Lijnen and myself.

The present draft law, which was submitted by Minister Peeters and Minister Ducarme, was discussed on 3 July 2018 in the Committee on Business.

Minister Peeters initiated and stated that the draft law aims to restore the tariff freedom of tourist accommodation operators in the contracts they conclude with platform operators for online reservations and to safeguard fair market practices as well as the contractual freedom and freedom of action in the hotel sector.

With the rise of online booking platforms, the sector for renting tourist accommodation has evolved considerably over the last ten years, according to the Minister. The platforms offer benefits for both consumers and hotel owners. Consumers can search, compare and book their hotels on a single website. Hotel owners gain more visibility abroad, allowing them to attract much more customers. The reservation platforms are therefore, according to the Minister, no longer to be thought out of the market for renting tourist accommodations.

According to Minister Peeters, the great success of online booking platforms creates a greater dependence of hotel operators on such platforms in order to rent their hotel rooms.

According to him, the online booking platforms have used that dependence to unilaterally impose contractual clauses on the hotel owners.

The draft law refers to one of those clauses, namely the parity clause. The Minister explained that online booking platforms use two types of parity clauses in contracts with hotel owners, namely the extended and the limited. According to Minister Peeters, the use of such parity clauses is not without consequences for the hotel owners or for the consumer. Hotel owners can no longer freely determine or modify their terms of offer by applying the parity clauses. They are partly losing the freedom to determine their own commercial policies. Consumers are hindered in searching for the most favourable offer conditions for the same room.

To address these problems, the draft law provides for a ban on the use of parity clauses. The clauses will be legally void, regardless of whether the contract was signed before or after the entry into force of the law, provided that the tourist accommodation to which the contract relates is located in Belgium.

Minister Ducarme explained that the draft law aims to ensure that operators of tourist accommodations in Belgium can now freely determine the price for the rental of their accommodation infrastructure. Consequently, according to him, they will also be free to grant all sorts of discounts or tariff advantages in relation to those stays.

Specifically, the draft law follows, according to Minister Ducarme, the annulment of the tariff parity clauses imposed by online booking operators such as Booking.com and Expedia on tourist accommodation operators, so that they must be considered as nonexistent. Consequently, tourist accommodation operators are now free to offer users, their private or professional customers, more interesting rental terms and rates than those offered for the same stay through the online booking platforms, irrespective of any contrary contractual clause.

The restoration of that freedom, according to the Minister, will not depend on the channel of communication used. The provision will apply both to the offers made by the tourist accommodation operators on the spot, by telephone, by fax or by e-mail as well as to the offers placed on their own website. The so-called limited parity clauses prohibit tourist accommodation operators from merely offering more attractive rates and benefits on their website. Also those clauses will, according to the Minister, be void and considered nonexistent.

Finally, the draft law concerns only the tourism companies offered by operators who have the capacity of an enterprise. Therefore, it does not apply to residential facilities such as student or guest rooms.

Mrs Fabienne Winckel took part in the introductory presentation of both ministers, as co-presentative of the annexed bill. Ms. Winckel welcomed the government initiative, which, in her opinion, largely corresponds to the content of her bill. For her further comments and those of the other MEPs in the subsequent general discussion, I would like to refer to the report on this subject.

Following the various statements and the responses of the ministers, the bill was unanimously adopted.

Mrs. Detiège, you will now have the word in the general discussion.

It is clear that with this bill, the ministers want to send a supporting signal to the hotel sector, which includes a large number of SMEs. These entrepreneurs may be legally independent, but economically they are apparently increasingly dependent on the online booking platforms. The parity clause imposed on them by these platforms is, according to the ministers, very problematic.

With this bill, the ministers want to provide a solution that should also be beneficial for the consumer, as the hotel owner can again propose more favourable rates if the customer addresses them directly.

In the committee, I emphasized the positive aspects of the bill, but I, like some other colleagues, have expressed some comments or worries about the future.

Other EU Member States such as France and Austria have previously taken similar measures. The question is what the effectiveness of those measures is there, knowing that previously it was pointed out to problems of compatibility with European law, as, among other things, was the case with the law-Macron in France. Experts also found that the law-Macron was too aligned with the needs of Accor.

The fear was therefore that the bill was pressed too quickly in Belgium, without taking into account the comments that the Belgian bill would also violate European competition law according to the European Commission.

We conducted this discussion. According to the ministers, the draft law was amended following the comments of the European Commission in Belgium.

A second concern that lives is the fact that large hotel chains will be favored. They often have the resources to obtain a better position in the search engine results. I think of Google, for example. They have something that small hotels can’t afford, especially their own reservation websites. General reservation websites are the best way for small independent hotel operators to gain internet awareness and access to the growing number of customers who book online.

Consequently, the question arises whether this bill, by targeting only the general reservation websites and not the large hotel chains, does not weaken the smaller independent hotel operators.

I have heard this general comment from the field.

The last concern that lives out is that weakening the online booking platforms may not be without risk. Indeed, in Austria, an agreement between the hotel federations has resulted in a general increase in rates in that sector. For this reason, I again call on the ministers to ensure that the consumer is not harmed.

Thanks for your attention.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ministers, dear colleagues, I will begin my speech by thanking Mrs. Detiège for the excellent report she presented to us today.

It has now been more than a year since the PS group submitted a bill to protect the freedom of pricing in the hotel sector. You will remember that this proposal was submitted following a Test-Shopping survey that had demonstrated the abuse of certain online booking platforms. It was therefore important for us to give some air to the hotel sector as well as to the consumer in order to negotiate prices and discounts.

As you know, the internet has clearly disrupted the hotel market. The Internet brings positive things but also calls for better frameworking some practices. Today, almost all of us have already booked our holidays online through sites such as Booking or Trivago, but we do not always realize the impact of these sites on our SMEs active in the tourism sector. In fact, commissions charged on online bookings sometimes reach rates of up to 24%.

Online booking platforms have taken huge power and this translates into aggressive and unfair business practices. The tariff parity clause is one of those abuses. It prohibits hotel operators from practicing or advertising prices different from those advertised on the booking platform.

This practice clearly undermines freedom of trade and affects consumer purchasing power. So it was time that we could put an end to this. In addition, the measure you have taken has a wide support. Indeed, the three horeca federations of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels have long demanded the removal of this clause of tariff parity. France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Sweden have already removed this clause. Therefore, we were lagging behind other European countries. Therefore, it is obvious that the PS group will support your bill.

However, the component of control and sanctions seems to us insufficient: the only sanction provided in your project is the nullity of the clause that violates the freedom of tariff. In our bill, we went further by providing for control by the Economic Inspection and criminal fines for internet platforms that will use the tariff parity clauses. In fact, it should not be forgotten that operators are often in a situation of economic dependence on platform operators. It is therefore useful that the State can intervene as a third party to better defend our SMEs and entrepreneurs against these internet giants who sometimes impose abusive clauses on them. The government, unfortunately, did not want to follow us on this point, while other countries have incorporated sanctions into their laws, such as France. Currently, with what is proposed, the government gives a means of action to the operators but leaves them to cope alone with the net giants.

We will therefore remain attentive to the implementation of this law and will request that it be regularly evaluated, precisely in order to consider subsequent checks and sanctions. This is a good measure for consumer protection and as a support for SMEs active in the tourism sector. I thank you for your attention.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Mr. Colleagues, in a few years, hotel companies have become economically dependent on online booking platforms, although they offer them advantages by providing them with extensive visibility, as well as the fact that they can be accessed at any time via the smartphone or other means of communication.

We said in the committee, there were still problems and things to improve. The strength ratio created enabled platform operators to impose contractual clauses on operators, such as parity clauses regarding the price, availability and/or conditions of the accommodation offer.

This bill represents a strong signal of support for the Belgian hotel sector, which consists largely of SMEs and self-employed. Each hotel owner will in the future have the opportunity to freely determine the rental price of the proposed accommodation. I say “free.” That was important for us. Therefore, they will be free to consent to any discount or tariff advantage to their customers. They will therefore be masters at home and will be able to decide - this "liberal" side that interests us strongly. Large support of the federations, coordination, I think that the loop is closed and the sector is manifestly favorable and happy to see this bill result.

I would also like to emphasize that this bill is especially beneficial for consumers. We have spoken a lot about SMEs and self-employed individuals but, in front of them, there are also consumers, the prohibition of clause should allow for improved competition in this market.

For these various reasons, my group can and will support this text. Thank you for the progress and the work done.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ministers, colleagues, we come up with this design just in time for the high season of tourism. It is full of summer and everyone is leaving on vacation, we too almost.

The draft has been discussed several times and has undergone a long preparation by the competent ministers. We fully support its content. It does indeed meet the objective of guaranteeing the free pricing of tourist accommodation operators in Belgium. This is in the benefit of both the consumer and the independent accommodation provider and hotel owners.

Over the past few months, we have received a lot of questions about the interests of the independent hotel owners. I believe that this proposal, with the prohibition of parity clauses and the provisions contained in the draft law, addresses the concerns in the hotel sector. It also protects the consumer.

We therefore fully support this proposal and hope that it can soon form a support for the independent hotel sector in our country.

Mr. Speaker, following the very interesting discussion that we held in the committee regarding the actual problem of online platforms for hotel reservations, a problem better known as the definition of “strict parity clause”, we had found that hotel merchants no longer had any room for manoeuvre with direct customers, consumers who we are.

We know that these online platforms enjoy very favourable terms in the proposed contracts, but also very significant profit margins that can reach up to 23%, as it has been recalled.

We also found that countries such as Germany, France and Italy have legislated and repealed this narrow parity clause and we, in our turn, consider this a good initiative.

I asked the Minister in March 2017 about this issue that concerned us all. We all expressed ourselves vividly as we were faced with an obvious injustice and a difference in treatment that leads the tourism sector, small self-employed and hotel owners to discrimination over unfair practices. It was not possible to negotiate with platform operators such as Booking or Trivago for them to withdraw this clause.

We must therefore adopt a bill that the Ecolo-Groen group supports. Indeed, it is important to support these self-employed and SMEs from the tourism and hotel sectors of our country, but also consumers, for whom this project represents a plus: not to be completely subject to these platforms and to benefit from a direct contact with the hotelers, restaurants and merchants in the tourism sector.

We consider it fundamental to support this sector that creates sustainable and non-delocalizable jobs in our country. We therefore support this proposal.

Since no one wants to intervene anymore, I give the floor to Minister Peeters.

First of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her report. Next, I would like to thank all members for their interventions, which were largely positive both in the majority and in the opposition, with a number of concerns here and there that were also addressed in the committee.

Regarding Ms. Detiège’s concerns, we have also indicated in the committee that we are conducting very intense consultations with all federations in the hotel sector, with both the independent hotel operators and with the hotel chains, as well as with the consumer associations in Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. These contacts and the documents we received from other countries, such as Germany, where the parity clause has been banned for a while, clearly show that the use of online booking platforms has continued to increase. In addition, the smaller hotel operators also use this. This is a concern that Ms. Detiège has once again emphasized here.

My colleague, Denis Ducarme, gave information on this subject. It is up to him to remind them, if necessary.

Mrs Winckel, in the committee, we actually discussed your proposal to provide for criminal sanctions and control measures. In our view, they are not necessary at all. Indeed, the civil sanction relating to the nullity of the parity clauses instituted by our project is the most appropriate solution. Moreover, it does not require a control measure, each hotelier being able to check, at his level, the consequences. That is why we have not provided for a criminal sanction, as you provided for in your bill.

On the other hand, I would like to give the floor to my colleague, Minister Ducarme.

I would like to thank the members for all the presentations. I hope we can deal with this both for the hotel sector and for the consumer, ⁇ not for this holiday period — everyone will already have booked their vacation — but for the next. This is good for the large hotel chains, for the small hotels and for the consumers.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the various parliamentarians for their work in the committee and their speeches today. It is interesting to blow up the usual clashes between the majority and the opposition to come together in favour of a measure such as this, which seems to us to be of common sense in so far as it will allow to give the operators of tourist housing freedom in choosing the prices they decide to practice, on the basis of the different supports available to do so.

As you pointed out, Mrs Winckel, margins and commissions exceeding 20 percent are huge. Ms. Cassart talked about dependence. We must restore freedom, guarantee freedom and protect the freedom of some small self-employed and some SMEs who are being imposed on the abusive clauses of multinational giants.

My colleague a reply on the question of sanctions. You are distinguished and allant more far in the matter. You respect your approach, but like the indicated M. Peeters, we n'estimions not necessary of adding sanctions or a supplementary control. The nullity of the clauses of tariff parity already constitutes a sanction allowing the protector this freedom to which you are referring.