Beijing opens hotel-booking probes into Meituan, Fliggy, Tongcheng and Tujia
Beijing's municipal market regulator said on Saturday, September 19, 2026, that it had recently opened four investigations into Meituan, Alibaba's Fliggy, Tongcheng Travel and Tujia under China's Anti-Unfair Competition Law, with no penalty named.
The Beijing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation said Saturday, Beijing time, that it had recently opened cases against four Chinese hotel and travel-booking platforms for suspected violations of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and the E-Commerce Law. The bureau was acting on an assignment from the national State Administration for Market Regulation after preliminary checks. The notice named Hangzhou Taomei Aviation Service, which operates Alibaba Group Holding's Fliggy travel platform; Tongcheng Network Technology; Tujia Online Information Technology; and Beijing Sankuai Information Technology, a unit of Meituan, the food-delivery and local-services group. These are case openings, not decisions: the notice announced no findings and no fine, and Hong Kong and U.S. cash markets are shut until Monday.
The Saturday notice did not name the practices under investigation. On March 23, the same municipal bureau, joined by the city's commerce and culture-and-tourism bureaus, summoned 12 platforms including all four of Saturday's names plus Trip.com Group, Qunar, Amap, JD.com, Taobao's flash-sale unit, Xiaozhu, Douyin and Kuaishou. It said some platforms had changed merchant backend settings without consent, used technical tools to monitor prices, and required sales at the "lowest price across the internet," which it said deprived merchants of pricing autonomy.
In July, SAMR ordered Trip.com, which is not among Saturday's four names, to pay RMB5.2 billion for abusing a dominant position in online hotel booking under the Anti-Monopoly Law, a bill the company put through its second-quarter results on Tuesday. We reported the exclusivity remedies when Trip.com took the charge.
On Tuesday, September 15, SAMR and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism called in Meituan, Douyin, JD, Trip.com, Tongcheng and Fliggy and told them to address competition risks including exclusive cooperation and "lowest price across the internet." Saturday's notice proceeds under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and the E-Commerce Law, not the Anti-Monopoly Law that carried the Trip.com fine, and it does not allege a dominant position.
Fliggy, in a statement carried by 21st Century Business Herald, said it "has always respected and upheld a fair, open and orderly market environment" and would cooperate with the Beijing investigation. Meituan's hotel-and-travel unit said it would actively cooperate and fully implement the regulator's requirements. Tongcheng Travel, the Hong Kong-listed online travel agency, and Tujia, a homestay-booking platform, said their businesses were operating normally. No hearing date, deadline, or remedy was published.
Meituan, Alibaba and Tongcheng in KWEB
The listed names already sit inside China internet funds. KraneShares' CSI China Internet ETF KWEB, a $4.65 billion book of offshore-listed Chinese internet stocks graded C by etf.net among China single-country funds, held Alibaba at 8.5%, Meituan at 7.2%, and Tongcheng Travel at 0.80% as of Friday. Tujia does not appear in that portfolio. Invesco's China Technology ETF CQQQ, graded D in the same category, held Meituan at 10.4%, its second-largest position.
Tongcheng, the one listed pure-play among the four, reported accommodation-reservation revenue of RMB5,450.8 million against RMB19,396.0 million in total for 2025.
The case files now sit behind the March summons, the July Trip.com fine, and Tuesday's joint instruction. What they contain is still the regulator's to disclose.
Frequently asked
Which companies are under investigation?
Meituan's Beijing Sankuai unit, Alibaba's Fliggy operator Hangzhou Taomei Aviation Service, Tongcheng Network Technology and Tujia Online Information Technology.
What are they accused of doing?
The notice did not name the practices, though an earlier summons of 12 platforms cited changing merchant backend settings without consent, price monitoring tools and "lowest price across the internet" demands.
Is this the same as the Trip.com case?
No: Trip.com was fined RMB5.2 billion for abusing a dominant position under the Anti-Monopoly Law, while these four cases allege no dominance and proceed under different statutes.
What did the companies say?
Fliggy and Meituan's hotel-and-travel unit said they would cooperate, and Tongcheng and Tujia said their businesses were operating normally.