Upset with OYO‘s regressive policies and unfair trade practices, the small scale hotel owners have started a protest against the firm. The association has said that OYO has forced ridiculously high discount rates on the hotel owners. The association has also stated that OYO has not been successful in delivering timely payments to the hotel partners.
T J Manoharan, district secretary of KHRA, while inaugurating the two-day-long strike on Wednesday said “Oyo’s unfair trade practices are completely illegal. If the benefit of the hefty commission charged by Oyo passes on to the customer, the deal becomes very attractive. We are planning to execute it through the new app”
The strike started with a procession of 100 hoteliers from Pathadipalam Metro station to Oyo’s office at Edappally. The protesters symbolically broke tabs in the front of the Oyo office which had Oyo property management app installed. Though many hoteliers were planning to hand over the withdrawal notice to Oyo, the company has refused to accept it, said KHRA office bearers.
Responding to the strike, OYO sought legal assistance and approached the Delhi High Court.
The Delhi HC said, “It appears that the said act of the defendants is essentially pushing other hoteliers/service providers to act in breach of contract between the plaintiff and its service providers/hoteliers with whom the plaintiff has an appropriate agreement. Such an act prima facie would be illegal.”
After many failed attempts of having a civil interaction with OYO on the issue, the KHRA has now decided to launch a parallel app. This app will provide similar discounted rates to its customers as OYO. The hotel owners have also decided to return to their base fare bookings from June 28. And will no longer accept any booking at Oyo rates.
Oyo needs to respond and act upon the rising situation soon. The association’s decision to launch a parallel app will build up unnecessary competition for the firm. Also, OYOs entire business model depends upon providing its customers with heavy discounts on hotel bookings. Once the hotels return to issuing rooms at their base fare, OYOs entire concept gets defeated.
