MANALI: After many cities of the country boycotted Make My Trip and Goibibo over the monopoly of online hotel booking giants, Manali hoteliers have offered them to work at their terms and conditions, failing to which may force hoteliers to consider boycotting them.
Manali Hoteliers’ Association president Anup Ram Thakur said they have asked officials of Online Travel Aggregators (OTAs) to hold a meeting with them in Manali where they will discuss on the 11 agenda points for the benefit of both the parties and also the customers. “We want to fix a commission rate with them as many hotels complain that some online agencies are charging very high commission from them by taking advantage of their helplessness. The commission would be charged on room tariff, not on meal. The reviews written by guests should have option to include hotel’s version.”
Hoteliers blamed that the companies are giving star ranking to the hotels themselves and were showing any tariff on the website which was misleading and illegal. “The category of the hotel and room’s tariff are finalized by department of tourism. Hotel or agency has no right to give star category to hotel only to mislead the tourists. Some online agencies give huge discounts and offers to customers. In such cases, the discounted amount would be borne by agency, not the hotel. And they need to display the original tariff approved by government,” Thakur added.
Hoteliers have more such demands from the OTAs which they have demanded to be fulfilled to maintain a healthy relation. While many hoteliers say it the hotel owners who themselves were offering huge commission to the companies to get booking, others said it was the monopoly of the companies as most bookings were coming through them.
Some hoteliers were demanding to boycott Make My Trip, Goibibo and other online portals as done by many cities in the country, Thakur said boycott was not the solution until they have a meeting with companies’ officials. “Business is possible with mutual coordination and transparency. Before taking any hard step, we have invited companies for meeting with us till January 25.”
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