EU COMPETITION LAW AND POLICY IN THE TOURISM SECTOR 33 Airlines and land transport companies are also large players in the tourism industry. According to the Eurostat, although EU residents travel predominantly by motor vehicles (64%), 17% and 11% of their trips are carried out by airplanes and trains, respectively, while buses (6%) and water vessels (2%) have more modest shares48. Admittedly, “tourism is an economic sector connected, at least in part, to the [air] transport sector”49; however, transport represents a separate EU policy, covered by a large number of sector-specific legislation50 and case-law, a subject we will only passingly touch upon. 2.2. Online intermediaries and recent Platform-to-Business regulation In the digital era, online travel intermediation is becoming more prominent. Apart from travel service providers (such as airlines, hotel operators, car rental companies or other transport service suppliers) operating through online means themselves51, two-or multi-sided platforms, acting as a medium, are growing fast. On the one hand, one of the reasons for their popularity is that indirect network effects allow suppliers to reach a more substantial number of potential consumers resulting in higher demand. On the other hand, consumers have access to more suppliers and, thus, a wider range of products52. This evolution inevitably affects the traditional supply of travel services by brick and mortar shops. Online Travel Agents (OTAs), i.e. online retailers supply “final tourist services through the commercial promotion on their website of various offers available in the market, enabling customers to access a wide range of services (hotel rooms, airline tickets, package tours, etc.) via a unique platform”53. OTAs provide, on the one hand, search, compare and booking services to consumers and, on the 48 Eurostat, Three quarters of all trips by EU residents are within their own country, 27.06.2019; available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/9861197/4-27062019-AP-EN.pdf/d90fb535-6574-4a67- -bf83-37751aa92a2d. 49 Joined cases T-371/94 and T-394/94, British Airways plc and others v Commission, Judgment of the Court of First Instance of 25 June 1998, ECLI:EU:T:1998:140, para. 227. 50 For example, on a positive note, the new EU regulation on safeguarding fair competition in international air transport aims to enable fair competition between EU and non-EU carriers and aims at guaranteeing a level playing field. See: Regulation (EU) 2019/712 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on safeguarding competition in air transport, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 868/2004 PE/77/2018/REV/1 OJ L 123, 10.05.2019, p. 4-17. 51 Case M. 8416 – Priceline/Momondo, 17.07.2017, para. 17. 52 Frisco Bostoen, Most Favoured Nation Clauses – Towards an Assessment Framework under EU Competition Law, CoRe 2017, Vol. 1(3), available at: https://doi.org/10.21552/core/2017/3/9, p. 225. 53 Margherita Colangelo, Parity Clauses and Competition Law in Digital Marketplaces: The Case of Online Hotel Booking, Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, Volume 8, Issue 1, 1 January 2017, pp. 3-14, https:// doi-org.coleurope.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/jeclap/lpw046, p. 7.
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