INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM, TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY LAW consumer on the booking.com platform. However, when the price is already "competitive" compared to "external" prices, Booking can still apply a discount to ensure that the price it offers is the best available online, but in this case the structure must have first agreed to the possibility that Booking apply the BSB at their own discretion. In order for Booking to intervene directly on the price through the Discount, the structure must join the "Pay with Booking" program. Overall, this strategy is likely to hinder the unfolding of effective competition in the (at least) national market for the online hotel intermediation and booking services, to the detriment of other OTAs, with adverse effects on hotels and ultimately consumers, in terms of higher prices and less choice for intermediation and booking services. In fact, Booking, through the simultaneous application of the aforementioned Program and the Sponsored Discount policy described above, is able to limit the autonomy of structures defining their pricing strategy, reproducing effects possibly similar to those deriving from the application of discount clauses. In fact, these programs are apt to discourage competing OTAs from reducing the commissions requested from the structures: these cannot reward them by charging lower prices due to the request for lower commissions, because otherwise they would risk losing the advantages in terms of visibility on the Booking platform deriving from participation in the Preferred Programs; at the same time, even if they applied lower prices on other OTA sites, Booking would seem to restore parity by intervening with the discount. It follows that any reduction in the commission would only have the effect of squeezing the margins of competing OTAs, not compensated by a subtraction of Booking's sales volumes. Therefore, the combination of the two tools described might reduce the incentives of OTAs to compete on the level of commissions requested while, at the same time, that might limite the expansion opportunities of competing OTAs suitable for producing a generalized increase in retail prices on all online sales channels in the medium-long term. At the moment the investigation is still ongoing and should be concluded in May 2025. 4. CONCLUSION The investigations carried out by ICA demonstrate the relevance of the application of competition rules in the tourism sector which, like other economic sectors, is affected by the influence of new technologies and the
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