The trade body confirmed on Wednesday that more than 200 hotels and bed and breakfasts in Denmark were affected by the payment delays, which were first reported last week and have also affected hotels in Sweden, The Netherlands, Hungrary, Croatia, and New Zealand. In its press release Horesta, part of the Danish Chamber of Commerce, said its members were owed between 15,000 kroner and 4m kroner, with the typical hotel owed about 100,000 kroner.
"It is a completely unreasonable situation that our members have been put in," the trade body's managing director Pia E Voss said in the press release. "We have members who have overdue receivables of up to 4 million kroner, but for small companies even 100,000 kroner can be enough for them to be challenged in terms of liquidity."
According to Denmark's Turistmonitor website, the trade body has given the Amsterdam-based web giant two days to pay its arrears in Denmark, or at least enter negotiations. "It is also clear that if it's not possible to have a constructive dialogue, we will have no choice but to take legal action to receive the outstanding money," Voss told the website. "When you are such a big player on the market, you have an extra duty to keep to your contracts, and that has not happened here." According to the UK's public broadcaster, the BBC, the company has blamed "unforeseen technical issues", and claimed it was working hard to resolve its payment delays.
