Hoteliers miffed with travel portals

RAJEEV RAVIDAS, TT, Gangtok: The Sikkim Hotel and Restaurant Association (SHRA) on Sunday threatened to stop honouring the bookings of travel websites if they fail to follow the standard global business practices.

Naresh Shrestha, the assistant general secretary of the SHRA, told The Telegraph that the travel websites randomly violate the established business norms to the detriment of local hoteliers. "Our issues include a regulation and base-level commission structure of 15 per cent, which is standard with all other international portals, an end to unauthorised discounts and promotions by the portals on hotel prices, adherence to hotels' laid down policies in terms of check-in and check-out timings, cancellations etc, and more transparency in payments by the travel websites," Shrestha said.

He added that the association will held a meeting with the representatives of the travel websites here on Monday on the issues. "This is a matter of concern not just for hoteliers in Sikkim, but also to those in Darjeeling, Siliguri and other places," Shrestha added.

The SHRA, Shrestha said, hopes to ensure a level playing field for all online travel portals operating in Sikkim while also considering the interests of local hoteliers. "The union ministry of tourism had recently stepped into examine the complaints of unethical practices adopted by Goibibo and MakeMyTrip which led to many hotel associations across the country to give ultimatum for boycott unless their concerns were addressed." "We will also approach the state government to intervene in the interest of the local hotel industry," Shrestha added.

The Telegraph was unable to contact the representatives of the travel websites for their side of the story.