How Booking Bypasses Serbia’s Regulations

The accommodation reservation website Booking has not been paying money to numerous hotels and other partners throughout the world for months now, supposedly due to technical problems, as reported by European media. According to the reports of the users, that is, the owners of the accommodation capacities, some of them did not receive payments for nearly six months, even though the portal was almost certainly getting money from the guests, because that’s the way the system works.

As the Politika daily learns from the Business Association of Hotel and Restaurant Industry of Serbia (HORES), so far, no local hotel has reported anything of the sort, although 90% of them advertise on this platform.

– We would surely be informed if there was a problem, because the association would react on behalf of the hotels. So far, nobody has complained – says the director of HORES, Georgi Genov.

However, the Ministry of Tourism, and it can be safely said, the Republic of Serbia too, have other difficulties with this online platform. As the Politika daily learns, this is the place where countless unregistered facilities which rent out accommodation space in Serbia advertise too.

– We have a problem with them, because they advertise accommodation in unregistered facilities. Our aim is to reduce the shadow economy in that sector, and here we have an example of a foreign company, which still doesn’t have an office in Serbia, profiting from the shadow economy. So far, on several occasions, we have initiated meetings with them and we’ve only had two – Dunja Djenic, the assistant minister of tourism, explains for Politika.

She also notes that they have proposed some solutions, but there is still no response. Serbia has proposed for Booking to advertise only facilities which would have to submit a unique identification number obtained from the Central Information System of e-Tourists when registering on the platform. That would practically register them, but the company has said that it is unacceptable for them. It is not clear why, since Booking is known to operate in line with the national regulations in every country.

There is no way of controlling Booking’s operations in Serbia, considering that they still don’t have an office in our country. The state is trying to find a way of stopping these operations and to primarily, which is the main goal, legalize all the facilities which provide hospitality and accommodation services.

– When they told us that they honored the laws of the countries in which they advertise, we introduced them to the fact that our regulations do not allow unregistered facilities to advertise. What remains for us is to raise it to the level of the European Union and look for a solution there. By the way, as far as I know, they have been sued by Croatia, Austria, some Scandinavian countries, due to this problem and others – Djenic says.

The most recent meeting with the representatives of Booking from Bulgaria was held online in August, and in the meantime, she says, they sent a lot of memos to the central as well, trying to get answers about when the problem would be solved. Booking has also changed the manner of payment on several occasions. Currently, the guest pays the sum to the advertiser, which then pays the share to the owner of the accommodation capacity, minus the fee, and the owner is then supposed to pay the tax. Of course, that doesn’t happen, because there are few of those that registered as accommodation rental places. So, the state is left without the tax money, the local self-governments are left without the money they are supposed to get from tourism fees. And foreign tourists then see that things are not done according to the law here, which is even worse.

– Let me just say that they rate accommodation with some kind of a star system which doesn’t match the categorization according to our regulations, which is an additional problem – Djenic says. She adds that, so far, Booking has agreed to take part in the campaign which would educate the users about their obligations with the Republic of Serbia next year. Let us remind that, in August, Booking Group reported a total income of USD 5.5 billion and a profit of USD 1.3 billion for the second quarter of 2023.

Ministarstvo turizma i omladine Republike Srbije

HORES Beograd

Ministry of Tourism and Youth

Booking

HORES

Georgi Genov

Dunja Djenic

website

accommodation reservation

unregistered facilities

shadow economy

Central Information System of e Tourists

hospitality

online meeting

advertiser

fee

foreign tourists

categorization