Heavy penalty for Trip.com

As part of a major regulatory crackdown on tech giants, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) dealt a significant blow on Saturday, July 25, 2026, by imposing a heavy fine of 5.2 billion yuan—approximately 770 million US dollars—on the Trip.com Group for abusing its dominant position in the online hotel booking market.

The Chinese regulator accuses the sector’s domestic leader—which controls iconic brands such as Ctrip, Qunar, and Skyscanner—of exploiting its market dominance. The company allegedly manipulated traffic-allocation algorithms and implemented technical restrictions to coerce various hotels into signing exclusivity clauses, thereby forcing them to guarantee Trip.com the lowest rates on the market.

The financial penalty comprises the confiscation of 1.66 billion yuan in profits deemed illegal and a direct punitive fine of 3.52 billion yuan, alongside a formal requirement to immediately return 122 million yuan in booking deposits that had been improperly withheld from industry partners. Faced with this resounding crackdown by the SAMR, the former giant Ctrip immediately responded by issuing a statement of total submission, pledging to accept the ruling without reservation and committing to implement to the letter all the structural reforms required to restore fair competition in the Chinese tourism market.