Booking.com
Booking.com is the world's largest accommodation booking platform, owned by the US-listed Booking Holdings group. It lists holiday rooms inside Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and takes a commission on every stay. Researchers counted 41 such listings in April 2026, some of them on land Palestinian families still hold title to and cannot reach. Both the group and its Dutch operating company sit on the UN's database of businesses involved in settlements.
Take Action
Apply pressure where it matters. Use these tools and personalise your message with evidence from this page.
- Contact Corporate LeadershipPre-filled letter templates for email or post
- Report New IntelligenceSubmit evidence of settlement listings or policy changes
- Share This ProfileShare on social media to raise awareness
- View Strategic AnalysisIn-depth analysis and engagement strategy
Before taking action, review our Code of Conduct for professional standards and ethical guidelines.
Help Us Hold Booking.com Accountable
Your skills and knowledge can strengthen this campaign. Join our volunteer research team or share insider information securely.
Leverage Your Expertise
Do you work in this sector? We need professionals who understand procurement cycles, regulatory compliance, and corporate governance. Don't just boycott - lead!
Decision-Maker Directory
Key individuals with influence over corporate partnerships and procurement decisions. The contact details shown are published business addresses, listed for professional correspondence only. Write to the role, not the person, and keep correspondence courteous and factual. Repeated, abusive or personal contact is unlawful harassment and damages the case being made.
Material Risk Framing
Frame your message around business risks. These talking points resonate with corporate stakeholders and institutional investors.
Booking.com is a household consumer brand with one of the largest marketing budgets in travel, and the settlement listings are documented down to individual plots. Ekō researchers matched a listing in Neve Daniel to a parcel in the Al-Khader village land registry and found the Palestinian family that still holds title to it. The Palestinian BDS National Committee has campaigned against the platform since 2022. At the June 2026 annual meeting, about a tenth of votes cast backed a resolution on settlement oversight.
Booking Holdings took $26.9 billion in revenue in 2025 and sold 1.2 billion room nights. Against that, its board told shareholders in April 2026 that the settlement listings are 'financially immaterial to the Company's business'. Investors have moved anyway: the Dutch pension funds PFZW and PME sold their holdings in October 2025 over accommodation listed in the occupied West Bank, and Denmark's Pædagogernes Pension divested citing the settlements.
A criminal complaint filed with Dutch prosecutors in November 2023 by the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq, alongside SOMO, the European Legal Support Centre and The Rights Forum, argues that Booking.com B.V.'s settlement revenue is the proceeds of crime under Dutch money-laundering law. After two and a half years without a prosecutorial decision, the complainants put the question to the Dutch Court of Appeal in April 2026. A separate criminal complaint filed in Paris in October 2025 covers Booking.com and Airbnb together. Neither has been tried.
Booking Holdings told shareholders its rule is to 'permit listings unless legally prohibited', which makes the law of the occupying power the operative standard. Its home state takes a different view: from September 2026 the Netherlands bans importing, buying, selling or broking goods from Israeli settlements, though accommodation is a service and sits outside that decree. Booking.com is also one of seven platforms designated a gatekeeper under the EU's Digital Markets Act.
Product Alternatives
Ethical replacements tagged by what matters to you: cost, quality, ethics, sustainability, or local sourcing. Make the switch today.
Check the address, not just the platform
Every large accommodation platform carries some settlement listings. The reliable check is the property's location: settlements in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan are marketed under Israeli place names, and platforms rarely say so. Expedia Group (which owns Hotels.com and Vrbo) and Tripadvisor are named alongside Booking Holdings in the same UN settlements database, and HotelTonight belongs to Airbnb, so none of those is a substitute.
Booking without a platform
Going direct removes the commission and the platform's listing decision from your booking entirely
Book direct with the property
Global
Reserve by phone, email or the property's own website
Hotels keep the 15% or so that would otherwise go to the platform, and often pass some of it back as a lower rate or an upgrade. You can also ask the property directly where it is.
Independent and family-run hotels
Location-dependent
Small operators outside the major chains and platforms
Keeps the money in the local economy and gives you a named person to ask about the property's location and ownership.
Other accommodation platforms
Where a platform is unavoidable, these are the ones with the narrowest exposure
Travelling to Palestine
Palestinian-run tourism organisations that book accommodation and tours directly with Palestinian hosts
Palestinian tourism portal covering accommodation, guides and transport
Money goes to Palestinian businesses rather than to a platform.
Palestinian tour operator in Beit Sahour running community-based tours and homestays
Places visitors with Palestinian families and guides; publishes its own code of conduct for justice tourism.
Comparison Legend
Strategic Analysis
In-depth assessment of the company's position, vulnerabilities, and recommended approaches for effective engagement.
High severity, high vulnerability — campaigns with the best chance of making an impact
Severity
7.0/10
(7 + 7) ÷ 2 = 7.0
Strategic Vulnerability
8.5/10
(8 + 9) ÷ 2 = 8.5
Learn about our methodology — companies are categorised based on severity (harm potential) vs strategic vulnerability (campaign leverage).
Why do these scores change?
Unlike static boycott lists, our targeting model is dynamic. This company's position on the matrix is re-evaluated continually as we verify new contracts, divestments, or policy changes. Your reporting directly impacts this score.
Booking.com sells accommodation. Its parent company booked 1.2 billion room nights in 2025 and took $26.9 billion in revenue. Some of those rooms are inside Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, territory the International Court of Justice held on 19 July 2024 that Israel occupies unlawfully. In April 2026 researchers at the corporate accountability group Ekō traced one listing in the settlement of Neve Daniel to parcel 13 in the Al-Khader village land registry. The registered owners' grandson, Mohammad Al-Sbeih, still holds title to that plot and cannot set foot on it. Booking.com can be moved because its own board has conceded the point that would otherwise make delisting hard: it told shareholders in April 2026 that these listings are "financially immaterial".
Key Leverage Points
- Quote the board's own words back at it. In its proxy statement of 21 April 2026, Booking Holdings told shareholders that the settlement listings are "financially immaterial to the Company's business" (sources). A company that says a line of business is worth nothing has no commercial answer to being asked to end it. Put that sentence in every letter.
- Ask about one address: parcel 13, Neve Daniel. Mohammad Al-Sbeih's family challenged the seizure of their land in the Israeli courts and lost, and the Al-Khader municipal registry still records them as its owners. A settler now lets a room on that plot through Booking.com for about $170 a night. "I want Booking.com to get off my land," Al-Sbeih says. Ask the company whether it will remove that listing. A question about one plot cannot be met with a policy statement.
- Shareholders can bring the resolution back in 2027. On 2 June 2026 a resolution asking the board to report on its oversight of settlement-related human rights risk took about a tenth of the votes cast, well above the level a first-time proposal needs to be refiled. Ask your pension fund whether it holds Booking Holdings, how it voted on Proposal 6, and whether it will back the resolution next time.
- Book direct, and say why. A booking is a dated, countable act by one person, which makes it easy to withhold and easy to report. Ring the property, book with it, and tell Booking.com's customer service why you left.
- The Dutch ban stops short of Booking.com. From September 2026 the Netherlands bans importing, buying, selling and broking goods from Israeli settlements, but accommodation is a service and falls outside the decree. Ask Dutch ministers to extend it to services, as the complainants in the criminal case have.
Evidence Summary
The listings are the evidence, and they are countable. Ekō researchers identified 41 Booking.com listings across 14 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank in April 2026, including the annexed Old City of East Jerusalem. Guests had left at least 3,800 reviews across them. Who Profits, an Israeli research centre, recorded a further 152 listings across 28 settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan. The trend runs one way. The UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory is an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Her report of June 2025 found that Booking.com had gone from 26 West Bank listings in 2018 to 70 by May 2023, and had tripled its East Jerusalem listings in the year after October 2023.
What the company added instead of a delisting was a sentence. Since October 2022 a banner tells travellers to "review any travel advisories provided by your government" about an area that "may be considered conflict-affected". It does not say occupied and does not mention human rights, and it is applied to Palestinian towns as well as to settlements. It appears only in search results when a settlement is searched by name, not on the listing page where the booking is made. Israel's foreign ministry said it had persuaded Booking.com to drop the stronger draft wording.
Booking Holdings Inc. and its Dutch operating company Booking.com B.V. are listed separately, at entries 27 and 28, in the September 2025 update of the UN's database of businesses involved in Israeli settlements. Booking has appeared in every edition since 2020. In November 2023 the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq, with SOMO, the European Legal Support Centre and The Rights Forum, filed a criminal complaint arguing that the settlement revenue flowing through Booking.com B.V. is the proceeds of crime under Dutch money-laundering law. After two and a half years without a decision, ten Palestinian and Dutch organisations took it to the Dutch Court of Appeal in April 2026. A separate complaint in Paris covers Booking.com and Airbnb. Neither has been tried.
Engagement Strategy
Booking.com is one of the few genuinely consumer-facing companies in this directory, and the ask is simple: delist the settlements. Its own filings have removed the commercial defence.
- Travellers. Book direct with the property, and tell Booking.com why you stopped using it.
- Shareholders and pension savers. Ask your fund whether it holds Booking Holdings and how it voted on Proposal 6. Dutch funds PFZW and PME sold theirs in October 2025; ask a fund that has not what it is waiting for.
- Employers, universities and public bodies. Any organisation with a travel policy can drop the platform from its approved booking channels, citing the UN listing rather than a political judgement.
- Governments. Press the Netherlands to extend its settlement decree from goods to services, and to reconsider the tax relief it grants a UN-listed company.
Evidence & Sources
Verified sources including NGO reports, regulatory filings, and primary documents. Use these to substantiate your correspondence. Entries marked First-hand were reported directly to this site and are published without identifying the source.
Royal Decree of 13 July 2026, published 21 July 2026 and in force from September 2026, banning the import, purchase, sale and placing on the market of goods originating in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, together with intermediary services for those transactions. Accommodation and tourism services fall outside its scope. Intentional breach carries up to six years' imprisonment.
Open sourceThe company's own filing records the result on 'a stockholder proposal requesting a non-binding vote on a resolution regarding business operations in illegal settlements': 64,039,145 for, 558,090,578 against, 7,840,777 abstaining. That is roughly a tenth of the votes cast in favour, comfortably above the level a first-time shareholder proposal needs to be refiled the following year.
Open sourceField research behind the 2026 shareholder resolution. Researchers identified 41 Booking.com listings across 14 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the annexed Old City of East Jerusalem, clustered around the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea and the settlement ring around Jerusalem. Guests had left at least 3,800 reviews across those listings. Using the Palestinian geospatial tool Geomolg and the Al-Khader village land registry, researchers traced a listing in the settlement of Neve Daniel to parcel 13 and located Mohammad Al-Sbeih, grandson of the registered owners, who holds formal title and cannot reach the land. The report also records that the 'conflict-affected area' label appears only in search results when a settlement is searched by name, and not on the individual listing page.
Open sourceResearch finding that Booking Holdings received about €4.6 billion in reduced corporate tax between 2010 and 2025 under the Dutch 'innovation box', which taxes qualifying profits at 9% rather than the standard rate. Separate Leiden University reporting in April 2026 found that 91% of the scheme's benefit goes to three companies, Booking.com among them.
Open sourceThe company's own account of its policy, and the source of the admission the campaign now turns on. Opposing a shareholder resolution on settlement oversight, the board states that 'the listings referenced in the proposal are financially immaterial to the Company's business', and sets out three core assumptions: 'We permit listings unless legally prohibited'; 'Our role is to provide relevant information to our customers'; and 'Customers should be empowered to decide for themselves where to travel'. The filing also records 2025 revenue of $26.9 billion and 1.2 billion room nights, and names Glenn Fogel as Chief Executive of both Booking Holdings and Booking.com.
Open sourceTen Palestinian and Dutch organisations, represented by criminal lawyer Willem Jebbink, asked the Court of Appeal to rule on the merits of the complaint after the Public Prosecution Service spent about two and a half years without reaching a decision. The court can order further investigation or direct prosecutors to bring the case.
Open sourceThe Ligue des droits de l'Homme filed a criminal complaint in Paris against both platforms, alleging complicity in the aggravated concealment of war crimes through the promotion of tourism in illegal settlements. It has not been tried.
Open sourceTwo of the largest Dutch pension schemes sold their holdings in Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia over accommodation listed in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, after engagement with the companies. PFZW's sale of the three holdings was reported at around €300m; PME's at almost €151m across shares and corporate bonds.
Open sourceAnnex I lists 158 enterprises. Booking Holdings Inc. is entry 27 (home State: United States) and Booking.com B.V. is entry 28 (home State: Kingdom of the Netherlands). Both are listed against activity (e), the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements. Booking has appeared in every edition of the database since the first in 2020. Inclusion means the UN Human Rights Office found reasonable grounds to believe involvement, a standard it states is lower than a criminal one.
Open sourceNames Booking Holdings Inc. and Airbnb, Inc. as platforms letting properties and hotel rooms in Israeli colonies, and finds that they sell tourism which 'sustains the colonies, excludes Palestinians' and legitimises annexation. On Booking.com specifically it records that the platform more than doubled its West Bank listings, from 26 in 2018 to 70 by May 2023, and tripled its East Jerusalem listings to 39 in the year after October 2023. It notes that Booking.com may label properties 'Palestinian territory, Israeli settlement' but continues to profit from the colonies.
Open sourceInvestigation counting 402 listings across the West Bank and East Jerusalem as at 30 August 2024 (350 on Airbnb and 52 on Booking.com, including 26 hotels), offering 760 rooms and capable of hosting more than 2,000 guests at a time.
Open sourceSupplementary evidence showing that Booking.com increased its East Jerusalem settlement listings from 13 to 39 in the year between 9 November 2023 and 9 November 2024, after the original complaint was filed, and citing the ICJ Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024.
Open sourceIsraeli research centre's file, valid to 30 November 2024, recording 24 listings across 12 West Bank settlements labelled 'Palestinian Territory, Israeli Settlement', 7 listings in the East Jerusalem settlements of Pisgat Ze'ev and Ramat Shlomo, some mislabelled as located in 'Israel', and 152 listings across 28 settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan, which falls outside the scope of the UN database.
Open sourceBooking.com became the seventh platform designated a gatekeeper, joining Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft, with full compliance obligations from 13 November 2024. Booking.com was separately designated a Very Large Online Platform under the Digital Services Act in April 2023.
Open sourceProsecutors confirm they will look into the criminal complaint accusing Booking.com of money laundering in connection with settlement listings.
Open sourceThe Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq, the Dutch research centre SOMO, the European Legal Support Centre and The Rights Forum filed a criminal complaint arguing that the revenue Booking.com B.V. collects from settlement listings constitutes money laundering under Dutch law, because the underlying activity is connected to war crimes.
Open sourceThe label reads: 'Please review any travel advisories provided by your government to make an informed decision about your stay in this area, which may be considered conflict-affected.' It appears in search results for a named settlement, city or town rather than on individual property pages, and is applied to Palestinian towns as well as to settlements. Israel's foreign ministry said it had persuaded the company to drop earlier draft wording that described the territory as occupied and referred to risks to safety and human rights.
Open sourceThe Palestinian BDS National Committee, the coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations that coordinates the boycott movement, calls for pressure on Booking.com until it stops listing accommodation, activities and attractions in occupied Palestinian territory, asking for boycott 'when a reasonable alternative exists' alongside lobbying and strategic litigation.
Open sourceJoint report with the Israeli land-research group Kerem Navot documenting Booking.com and Airbnb rental listings in West Bank settlements and tracing the confiscated land beneath them. It recorded 26 Booking.com listings in settlements at that date, the baseline the UN Special Rapporteur later measured growth against.
Open sourceUpdates & Milestones
- Netherlands bans settlement goods
The Dutch government publishes a decree banning trade in and broking of goods from Israeli settlements from September 2026. Accommodation is a service and falls outside it.
- Shareholder resolution defeated
At the annual meeting on 2 June, a resolution asking the board to report on its oversight of settlement-related human rights risk takes about a tenth of the votes cast. The board had opposed it, telling shareholders the listings are 'financially immaterial'.
- Listing traced to a Palestinian land title
Ekō researchers identify 41 listings across 14 settlements and trace one in Neve Daniel to parcel 13 in the Al-Khader land registry, whose registered owners' grandson, Mohammad Al-Sbeih, still holds title and cannot reach the land.
- Court of Appeal asked to force a decision
Ten Palestinian and Dutch organisations file an Article 12 procedure at the Dutch Court of Appeal after prosecutors spend two and a half years without reaching a decision.
- Dutch pension funds divest
PFZW and PME sell their holdings in Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia over accommodation listed in illegal settlements. A criminal complaint covering Booking.com and Airbnb is filed in Paris the same month.
- Listed again in the UN database update
The updated database names 158 enterprises. Booking Holdings Inc. and Booking.com B.V. appear as separate entries, at 27 and 28.
- Named by the UN Special Rapporteur
The UN Special Rapporteur's report names Booking Holdings among platforms selling tourism that 'sustains the colonies, excludes Palestinians' and legitimises annexation, and records the doubling of West Bank listings since 2018.
- East Jerusalem listings tripled after the complaint
Al-Haq and partners file additional evidence showing Booking.com's East Jerusalem settlement listings rose from 13 to 39 in the year after the complaint was filed.
- ICJ Advisory Opinion
The International Court of Justice holds that Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful, and that states and international organisations must not recognise or assist in maintaining it.
- Dutch prosecutors take up the complaint
The Public Prosecution Service confirms it will examine the money-laundering complaint against Booking.com.
- Criminal complaint filed in the Netherlands
Al-Haq, SOMO, the European Legal Support Centre and The Rights Forum file a criminal complaint with Dutch prosecutors arguing that Booking.com B.V.'s settlement revenue is the proceeds of crime under Dutch money-laundering law.
- 'Conflict-affected' banner introduced, then weakened
Booking.com adds a banner advising travellers to check government travel advice for areas that 'may be considered conflict-affected'. Israel's foreign ministry said it had persuaded the company to drop draft wording describing the territory as occupied and referring to safety and human rights risks. The banner appears in search results, not on listing pages, and is applied to Palestinian towns as well as settlements.
- Listed in the UN settlements database
Booking.com is named in the first edition of the UN Human Rights Office database of businesses involved in Israeli settlements, for providing services supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements.
- Settlement listings documented
Human Rights Watch and the Israeli research group Kerem Navot document Booking.com rental listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, recording 26 at that date and tracing the confiscated Palestinian land beneath them.