A planned collective legal action against online booking platform Booking.com involving Turkish hotels will not proceed because of insufficient participation, according to Armin Zerunyan, founder of AZ Consulting.
The initiative aimed to enable Turkish hotels to join the wider European compensation case against Booking.com through a separate Turkish file linked to the main proceedings. However, the required level of participation was not achieved, bringing the Turkish initiative to an end.
Zerunyan said the country’s accommodation sector had missed an important opportunity by failing to secure sufficient support for the action.
The collective compensation initiative is being coordinated by Stichting Hotel Claims Alliance (SHCA), with support from HOTREC, the European association representing hotels, restaurants, bars and cafés.
According to Zerunyan, the wider European initiative was expected to attract more than 18,000 hotels. The plan for Türkiye was to establish a separate but parallel case connected to the main European proceedings.
However, the Turkish file will not move forward because too few hotels chose to participate. Zerunyan confirmed that the Türkiye case had been closed.
Participation in the initiative was voluntary, and hotels and industry organisations made their own assessments about whether to join.
Zerunyan said that much of the accommodation sector, along with professional associations, had opted not to participate because of concerns about dependence on the booking platform and fears of possible retaliation.
As a result, the planned legal action in Türkiye could not proceed. Zerunyan described the outcome as a missed opportunity for the country’s accommodation industry.
While the Turkish initiative has been discontinued, the wider European case against Booking.com will continue according to its own scope and timetable.
The decision means that the planned Türkiye-specific compensation file will not be added to the ongoing European proceedings.
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