Around 270 hoteliers in the city of Ahmedabad have stopped taking bookings from two major online travel portals – MakeMyTrip and Goibibo – alleging heavy commission and indiscriminate discounts offered by these platforms on room tariffs.
The decision to boycott the online booking platforms over commission and indiscriminate discounts was taken at a meeting of Gujarat chapter of the Hotels and Restaurants Association (HRA) last week.
“As decided, around 270 hotels in the city have stopped entertaining customers who had booked their rooms through these two portals,” spokesperson, HRA – Gujarat, Abhijeet Deshmukh, said, adding the boycott came into effect from 1 December. He said hotels in other cities in the State may also follow suit in coming days.
“There was a time when online booking portals used to charge only 15 to 18 per cent as commission. Now, these two portals are charging 40 to 45 per cent. Further, indiscriminate discounts offered by them on room tariffs is also a major threat to our business these days,” said Deshmukh.