A record-breaking fine of 5.179 billion yuan has brought an end to Trip.com's unchecked monopoly era in the online travel industry, stripping away the company's polished exterior.

On July 25, 2026, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a heavy penalty against the company, long criticized for abusing its dominant market position through monopolistic practices. This marks the highest antitrust fine ever imposed in China's online travel agency (OTA) sector. The penalty is not an isolated regulatory action but a final reckoning for years of what many describe as aggressive and unfair business tactics.

For years, Trip.com, commanding over 50% of the online hotel booking market, has manipulated industry rules to its advantage. Practices have included forcing merchants into exclusive agreements, imposing clauses to guarantee the lowest prices on its platform, secretly altering hotel rates using a "price adjustment tool," deploying algorithms to exploit consumers, and squeezing small and medium-sized businesses with high commissions. These actions have created what some call a "textbook case of industry chaos."

While Trip.com has enjoyed high commissions and monopoly profits, merchants have struggled and consumer complaints have surged. The 5.179 billion yuan fine, though substantial, represents only a fraction of the illegal gains accumulated over years of misconduct. The company's ingrained arrogance and greed remain deeply rooted.

Forced Exclusivity and Price Control

Since 2020, Trip.com has dominated half of the online hotel booking market, adopting a "monopoly hegemony" model. Rather than competing on service quality, it has used restrictive rules to dominate the industry and lock in business partners. These practices are central to the recent penalty.

The company introduced a "Special Hotel" program, ostensibly offering traffic and resource support, but effectively forcing quality merchants into exclusive cooperation agreements. To access Trip.com's top-tier traffic exposure and order support, merchants had to agree to a "two-choice-one" rule, delisting their properties from competing platforms like Meituan and Fliggy. Any merchant daring to list on multiple platforms would face immediate penalties, including losing special qualifications, reduced traffic, higher commission rates, and a sharp drop in orders, until they complied.

Many B&B owners in Yunnan and Zhejiang have publicly complained that Trip.com account managers persistently pressured them via phone and WeChat, leaving small businesses with little choice but to abandon multi-channel operations and become exclusive profit-generating tools for the platform.

Beyond forced exclusivity, Trip.com also imposed a "lowest price" requirement across its entire platform. For non-exclusive gold and standard hotels, the company added unreasonable conditions, demanding that prices on Trip.com be the lowest available anywhere. If a lower price appeared on another platform, the merchant would face penalties and reduced traffic. This system stripped merchants of pricing autonomy, forcing them to cut profits and forgo promotions to meet Trip.com's demands, even during off-peak seasons.

By combining "exclusive store locking" with "lowest price monopolization," Trip.com disrupted fair competition across the industry. Rival platforms struggled to secure quality merchant resources, small and medium-sized businesses lost operational freedom, and the entire online hotel market became dominated by one player.

Algorithm-Driven Price Manipulation

While the "two-choice-one" policy was an overt form of coercion, Trip.com's hidden price adjustment algorithms have been a more insidious tool for exploiting both supply and demand, becoming a major source of consumer and merchant complaints.

To maximize profits, Trip.com launched a "price adjustment assistant" tool. Marketed as an intelligent pricing feature, it allegedly altered hotel prices and discount levels without merchant authorization, arbitrarily intervening in market pricing. In 2025, regulatory inquiries and merchant reports from multiple regions exposed the true nature of this system. Several hotel owners in Zhengzhou filed complaints, stating that their independently set holiday price of 480 yuan was secretly changed to 130 yuan on the backend, destroying profit margins. Many other merchants reported that during off-peak seasons, the platform dumped rooms at low prices, leaving them with no profits or even losses. During peak seasons, prices were secretly raised to capture higher margins, all without informing or consulting the merchants.

This "bullying pricing mechanism" is a classic case of "double exploitation." For merchants, they lost all pricing control over their own properties, with profits arbitrarily taken by the platform. For consumers, the so-called intelligent pricing was unfair, with hidden algorithmic price increases, higher rates during holidays, different prices for the same room based on user data, late-night price hikes, and inflated rates for last-minute bookings.

For years, Trip.com has topped consumer complaint lists in the OTA industry regarding issues like "arbitrary price changes, price fraud, and big data price discrimination." Users frequently report that "the more familiar you are, the more expensive it gets" or "the more urgent your need, the higher the price." Despite multiple regulatory talks and rectification orders from authorities in Zhengzhou and Guizhou, Trip.com has repeatedly relapsed into these practices after brief periods of compliance.

High Commissions Crushing Small Businesses

Beyond monopolizing traffic and controlling prices, Trip.com's most criticized practice has been its persistently high commission rates, which squeeze small and medium-sized businesses. By leveraging its absolute traffic advantage, the platform has arbitrarily increased commission percentages, turning countless hotels and B&Bs into profit sources.

Within the industry, Trip.com's commission rates have long been at the high end. Combined with various platform service fees, promotion fees, and top-listing charges, merchants' profits have been eroded layer by layer. What is more, commission rates are unilaterally determined by the platform with no room for negotiation and can be adjusted based on a merchant's traffic volume or scale.

Merchants forced into exclusive agreements, while seemingly gaining traffic support, become trapped in a high-commission system. Unable to diversify across multiple platforms to share costs, their profit margins are squeezed to the limit. Small B&Bs and county-level hotels, which already have limited customer bases and thin margins, can barely survive under Trip.com's high-pressure commission structure. Many business owners say that after a year of hard work, most of their profits go to the platform, leaving them with only a modest income.

In contrast, Trip.com, without any offline investment or operational costs, sits back and collects massive commissions through its traffic monopoly and platform rules. The irony is compounded by the fact that while Trip.com mercilessly extracts profits from merchants, it does not provide corresponding service support. Merchants paying high commissions still bear all costs for customer acquisition, after-sales, cleaning, and maintenance. When negative reviews or disputes arise, they must handle them themselves. The platform simply takes its cut without providing service, creating a severe imbalance of rights and responsibilities.

Complaints and Superficial Rectification

The monopoly power and dual exploitation are underpinned by Trip.com's long-standing high complaint volume and dismissive attitude toward rectification. On major complaint platforms, Trip.com consistently tops lists for issues like false pricing, unauthorized price changes, non-refundable deposits, poor after-sales service, and unfair terms. Consumers struggle to protect their rights, and merchants find it difficult to seek recourse.

Faced with a flood of complaints and multiple regulatory meetings, Trip.com has adopted a mindset of "superficial rectification followed by relapse." In July, August, and September 2025, regulators in Zhengzhou and Guizhou issued orders for rectification regarding the company's "two-choice-one" policy, illegal price adjustments, and restrictions on merchant operations. However, Trip.com only made cosmetic changes, briefly pausing its illegal practices before quickly resuming them in a different form. It has never fundamentally reformed its rules or standardize its operations.

The 5.179 billion yuan fine represents a decisive regulatory action against Trip.com's long-term violations and a strong move to clean up monopolistic practices in the OTA industry as a whole. However, many industry insiders and consumers view this massive penalty as little more than a "painless tuition fee" for a company that has grown rich on monopoly profits for years. The illegal gains accumulated over time far exceed the fine amount.

More critically, Trip.com's deeply ingrained monopolistic mindset and profit-driven nature have not changed. Its core business model relies on traffic dominance, algorithmic exploitation, and squeezing both supply and demand. Genuine reform will be extremely difficult. Without consistent regulatory oversight and strict follow-up accountability, Trip.com may simply repackage its practices and continue its exploitative tactics after the fine is paid.

The 5.179 billion yuan fine has ended an era of unchecked monopolistic behavior and stripped away the company's glamorous industry image. For years, Trip.com used its market dominance to act with impunity, exploiting merchants with unfair terms and high commissions while using algorithms and big data to deceive consumers. It profited from a dual exploitation model, abandoning industry fairness, business ethics, and customer trust.

This heavy penalty is just the beginning, not the end. The real test for Trip.com is not paying a huge fine but whether it can completely abandon its monopolistic arrogance, break its distorted profit model, and respect market rules, merchants, and consumers. If it remains stubborn and continues to make only superficial changes while skirting the edges of legality, it will face even stricter regulatory action and eventual market elimination.