The Russian Hotel Association and the League of Small Hotels, Hostels and Tourist Accommodations sent a letter to Booking.com demanding that it cancel all bills issued to hotels beginning in February 2022.
The letter says Booking.com should have given Russian hotels 14 days’ notice to disconnect from its services. The letter was addressed to Glenn Vogel, CEO of the online hotel reservation service.
Olga Voinova, chairman of the League of Small Hotels, Hostels and Tourist Accommodation, said the service disconnected Russian hotels from its system on the same day, saying that the bill for February would come later because of payment failures.
The personal account of Russian companies on Booking.com contained 20 years of customer information. The service not only disconnected hotels from its system, but also blocked the account. Companies were left without guest data.
Olga Voinova
Hotels’ revenues in March fell by 50%, occupancy was at the level of 10%. Hotels paid Booking.com 20% of their turnover, which averaged from 300 to 500 thousand rubles.