Regulatory and Legal Affairs

🏨 Dec 3, 2025, the HSMAI Europe roundtable reveals key insights into the hotel industry: OTAs maintain implicit power without formal parity clauses, impacting rate competitiveness. Booking.com faces gatekeeper obligations, unlike Expedia, due to quantitative thresholds. AI platforms risk commoditizing hotels, prioritizing price over brand. Social platforms like TikTok and Instagram emerge as direct booking channels. Hotels in mature markets, such as Mallorca, show better OTA balance, highlighting the need for disciplined channel management and direct booking strategies.

📝 HOTREC, Ceemet, the European Banking Federation, and WEC-Europe urge the EU to simplify and enforce the social acquis. One year after the European Commission's agenda to simplify rules, the social acquis now includes 70+ legal acts, creating complexity for SMEs, particularly in hospitality. They emphasize simplification should be ongoing and not deregulation, and stress enforcing existing rules over creating new ones. HOTREC aims to boost competitiveness and employment in Europe.

🛠 UKHospitality (UKH) welcomes the government's revision of the Employment Rights Bill, set for 2025. The update abandons the proposal allowing unfair dismissal claims from day one, opting instead for a six-month threshold; employees previously needed two years. UKH advocates against immediate statutory sick pay changes, citing impacts from minimum wage and business rates adjustments. Kate Nicholls, UKH chair, supports the revision for maintaining youth employment and reducing costs for hospitality businesses.

📈 MEP Niels Flemming Hansen, from Denmark and member of the EPP Group, highlights the crucial role of SMEs in Europe's hospitality sector. He emphasizes simplifying EU rules and reducing red tape to aid SME success. Key challenges include skill shortages and rising costs, calling for digital “one-stop-shops” for compliance. Looking towards 2026, he advocates for digitalization and sustainability as business opportunities, encouraging use of EU funding for green investments to maintain competitiveness and job creation in the sector.

📈 Business rates are set to rise by 10.2% from April 2026, increasing from £33.6bn to £37.1bn. The new high-value business rates multiplier is 50.8p for properties valued at £500,000+, affecting 21,000 properties, with 10,700 in London and the Southeast. The retail, hospitality, and leisure (RHL) rates relief, capped at £110,000, ends next April. A redesigned £3.2bn Transitional Relief scheme and £500m Supporting Small Business Scheme aim to provide support.

💸 UK: On November 26, 2025, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the Autumn Budget, addressing a £20 billion gap with £26 billion in tax hikes and new measures like a sugar tax and overnight stay tax. From April 2026, the National Living Wage rises to £12.71, adding £1.4 billion to hospitality costs. Business tax rates cut for 750,000 properties, offset by higher taxes on properties over £500,000. Inflation to hit 3.5% in 2025. Income tax thresholds frozen until 2030-31.

💰 Income tax and NI thresholds will be frozen until 2031, generating £8bn, while the minimum wage rises by 50p from April 2026. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, announced measures to address a £20bn fiscal gap. Pension tax breaks above £2,000 will no longer be NI-exempt, raising £4.7bn in 2029-30. A new mansion tax on homes over £2m targets 100,000 properties. The government will introduce a mileage tax on EVs at 3p per mile.

🏨 UKHospitality warns a proposed 5% holiday tax in England could cost domestic travelers up to £518m, affecting over 89 million annual trips. This would raise the VAT on holiday accommodations to 27%, doubling rates compared to Paris and significantly more than Barcelona or Rome. The potential tax, aimed to address cost of living issues, is opposed by UKHospitality chair Kate Nicholls, who argues it will increase consumer costs and inflation. The government has paused for consultation.