Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on April 8, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 24, 2026
Italy fines operators €20M for hoarding Colosseum tickets, limiting access and inflating prices. CoopCulture and six operators penalized.
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's antitrust authority has fined a ticketing company and six tour operators nearly 20 million euros ($21.7 million) for ticket hoarding practices limiting access to the Roman Colosseum, the regulator said on Monday.
The AGCM authority said it had fined CoopCulture, which managed official ticket sales for the Colosseum from 1997-2024, 7 million euros for failing to prevent automated ticket hoarding and for reserving a large share of tickets for its own guided tour packages.
The AGCM said this conduct led to the "substantial and prolonged unavailability" of standard-priced tickets for Italy's most popular tourist attraction, forcing consumers to purchase higher-priced tickets bundled with additional services.
Six tour operators - Tiqets International BV, GetYourGuide Deutschland GmbH, Walks LLC, Italy With Family S.r.l., City Wonders Limited, and Musement S.p.A. - were also fined for using software robots (bots) to buy tickets in bulk, contributing to their rapid disappearance from CoopCulture's website.
The operators then resold the tickets bundled with services such as guided tours or priority access, often at significantly higher prices, the regulator said.
The investigation began in July 2023 after widespread complaints that it was nearly impossible for consumers to buy tickets to the Colosseum at official prices online.
($1 = 0.9227 euros)
(Reporting by Gavin Jones, editing by Gianluca Semeraro and Louise Heavens)
The article discusses Italy's antitrust fines on tour operators for hoarding Colosseum tickets, limiting consumer access.
CoopCulture and six tour operators were fined nearly €20 million for ticket hoarding practices.
Fines were imposed due to automated ticket hoarding, which led to inflated prices and limited consumer access.
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