Saloni Bhatia – New Delhi
Tour operators in India are looking at formulating ethical tourism principles which would benefit all industry partners. The proliferation of online travel portals which display prices at heavy discounts for hotel bookings has led to a price war among the online and offline channels. In conversation with Express TravelWorld, Rakesh Lamba, co-chairman, Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India (ADTOI), said, “Under the ethical tourism policy we are requesting our principals, that is hoteliers, to allow discounted rates only to be displayed at B2B portals not on B2C portals. There has been a price war which is leading to confusion among travellers and losses for the industry. The B2C portals should have common rates set by the hotels and the discounted rates should only be visible on B2B portals. Service standards have also gone down drastically in the absence of respectable margins.” This policy would not only benefit the hotels and tour operators but create a standard for the industry. Lamba added, “Since in the B2C portals the clients would only see the selling price, they would book directly or via a tour operator. The portals would make profits in both the cases and would also get a loyal team of professional tour operators. This systems would create repetitive sales for everybody.”
It aims at bringing the customers back to the agents as the latter would not have access to B2B portals. Lamba advocated, “We are not competing against technology but wish to adopt it in an ethical manner. The new online portals cannot compete with the the local operators in terms of knowledge and consultancy. This policy would be a win win situation for everybody.”
He mentioned that hotels will benefit from this as average room rate (ARR) will increase as discounted rates are not displayed, OTAs will be making better profits and will not squeeze hotels for lower rates. Furthermore, direct customers of the hotels will not have any complaints as display rates on these sites will be higher than net rates quoted to OTAs. This will result in gaining the confidence and enhancing the hotels’ credibility amongst direct clients.