Booking.com suspends hotel reservations in occupied Azerbaijani territories
AzerTAg.az
Baku, June 29, AZERTAC
Booking.com, the Netherlands-based travel fare aggregator website, has suspended hotel reservations in occupied Azerbaijani territories, Azerbaijan`s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hikmet Hajiyev said.
According to the spokesperson, on June 2 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism stated that they will take necessary steps and a note of protest will be sent to Booking.com through the Azerbaijani Embassy in the Netherlands.
“Booking.com’s promotion of Azerbaijan’s occupied territories as a tourist destination and making hotel reservations there are in contrast with the norms and principles of international law, the regulations of the World Tourism Organization, the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, and relevant decisions and recommendations of the WTO Executive Council. While the Netherlands, where the company is based, as well as the European Union, supports Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, Booking.com has acted against this position,” he added.
Hajiyev stressed that making hotel reservations in Azerbaijan’s occupied territories, which is a conflict zone and where an act of ethnic cleansing was committed, and making profit out of it contradict corporative business rules and moral values.
Text contains orthographic mistake
