Booking.com, headquartered in Amsterdam and part of the American company Booking Holdings, appears on the UN list of businesses with a negative impact on the human rights of Palestinians in occupied territory. The reason: the company actively lists accommodations in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in occupied East Jerusalem.
Under international law, these settlements are not only illegal but also constitute a war crime. As an occupying power, the Israeli government has no right to use state land for the permanent housing of Jewish civilians. Nevertheless, by 2018 Booking.com was already listing 45 accommodations in settlements — a dramatic increase from just two in 2010. Between 2021 and 2023, research bureau SOMO established that Booking.com was offering a total of 70 properties in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. And it hasn’t stopped there. In the single year between November 2023 and November 2024, the number of listings in East Jerusalem alone rose from 13 to 39.
The problem extends beyond simply listing accommodations. Tourism demonstrably contributes to the economic viability of settlements, and thereby to the perpetuation of a system that displaces Palestinians from their land. Visitors are typically not informed about the true nature of the location. In 2022, Booking.com did take a small step by adding a warning label to settlement reservations using the terms “high risk to safety and human rights” and “occupied” — but the BDS movement considers this wholly inadequate as long as the listings themselves remain.
Legal pressure is meanwhile mounting. In November 2023, a coalition of four organizations filed a criminal complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Rotterdam, accusing Booking.com of laundering criminal proceeds — the first case of its kind in which a company is accused of money laundering in connection with war crimes. In December 2024, the same coalition submitted additional evidence, partly based on the International Court of Justice advisory opinion of July 2024, which reaffirmed the illegality of the settlements and underscored the responsibility of states and companies not to contribute to them.
Booking.com maintains that it complies with all applicable laws and regulations, and that it is up to travelers themselves to decide where they wish to go. The company adds that other businesses that attempted to withdraw from the settlements faced legal action, and that it expects the same would happen if it tried to do so. Critics view this as a transparent excuse from a company that simply has no intention of changing course.
As long as Booking.com actively profits from occupied territory — and continues to expand that offering — it remains a legitimate and urgent target of the BDS movement.