Booking Holdings will fight any decision made by the European Commission (EC) to veto is acquisition of flight technology company Etraveli.
Rumors surfaced late last week that the EC was planning to block it, with the Financial Times citing a number of sources with knowledge of the deal.
Booking Holdings first announced its acquisition of Sweden-based ETraveli for €1.6 billion in late 2021, but the deal hit the rails last year when the European Commission said it could fall within the scope of its merger regulations and opened an in-depth investigation.
Regulators’ concerns include that the acquisition could increase barriers to entry for competing OTAs and increase costs for hoteliers and potentially consumers. They also believe it could strengthen Booking.com's position in the online hotel booking space.
The commission is scheduled to make a decision on the deal on September 27. However, Booking Holdings chief financial officer David Goulden said the company will not take the decision lying down.
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology event this week, Goulden said the company had not heard anything formal from the EC but that it remains “very committed to flights.”
He added that it has extended its partnership with Etraveli until the end of 2028 and “will be working with them and will continue to build out the flight offering of Booking.com over several years.”
Goulden also said the company would “strongly disagree” with a veto from the Commission and added it would be “fundamentally flawed on both factual and legal grounds.”
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“If that is the decision of the European Commission we would intend to appeal it through the European courts.”
Commenting on Booking.com's flights vertical in general, Goulden said it was growing rapidly albeit from a relatively small base.
“It has the potential to become much much larger and be multiple times the size it is now just fulfilling the potential within the existing customer base and we can grow beyond that,” he said.
Flights are a critical part of the company's strategy to create a "connected trip." Regarding that overall vision, Goulden said developments would continue to be incremental and that the company is building out its verticals supported by its payments platform.
“We believe the connected trip is something that can solve what is still today complicated, fragmented and frustrating way to travel. While a site like ours can maybe handle a piece of the trip and do it very well, you’re still left at your own mercy to go off and put the rest of it together, pay for it in multiple places and if anything goes wrong, heaven help you,” he said.
“We believe planning, booking and experiencing travel to be more personal and more enjoyable is a great way to drive value for our customers and our partners.”
Commenting on potential areas of investment, Goulden said non-accommodation verticals, such as car rentals, are important since they enable people to experience the connected trip beyond the core market in Europe.
He also mentioned interest in solutions that create a seamless, personalized trip, for example offering the five most suitable accommodation options as opposed to thousands.