BEIJING: China's State Administration for Market Regulation said on Saturday that it has imposed administrative penalties on Trip.com Group, the operator of Ctrip travel platform, for abusing its dominant market position in violation of the country's anti-monopoly law.
According to the regulator, the company was ordered to forfeit 1.658 billion yuan (about 244 million U.S. dollars) in illegal gains and pay a 3.521 billion yuan fine, bringing the total penalty to 5.179 billion yuan.
The regulator also ordered the group to refund 122 million yuan in hotel order reserve funds that had been forcibly deducted from hotel operators, undertake comprehensive rectification measures and publicly disclose its corrective actions.
Trip.com, China's largest online travel platform, provides services including hotel reservations, transportation ticketing and vacation packages.
According to the regulator, it received multiple complaints in 2025 alleging that Trip.com had forced hotels to accept unfair contractual terms and used technological means to influence hotel pricing, thereby harming fair market competition and squeezing hotel profitability.
The regulator opened an investigation in January 2026, which found that Trip.com had abused its dominant position in China's online hotel booking platform services market by using its traffic allocation mechanism, platform rules and technical tools to require certain hotels to enter into exclusive cooperation agreements and offer the "lowest price across the internet."
These practices restricted fair competition, limited hotels' ability to operate across multiple platforms, infringed upon their pricing autonomy, harmed consumer interests, and impeded the healthy development of the industry, the regulator noted.
Shi Jianzhong, deputy head of the expert advisory group under the State Council's anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition commission, said the investigation underscored China's commitment to strengthening routine antitrust enforcement and promoting the sound development of the platform economy.
He said platform companies should draw lessons from the case, improve competition compliance and foster a market environment featuring fair competition, quality services and better protection of the legitimate rights and interests of businesses and consumers. - Xinhua
