Tour operators, hoteliers at odds

Tour operators, hoteliers at odds
Swati Prasad

New Delhi, Feb 9: Foreign tourists who are planning to visit India after February 15 might not get a room in big luxury hotels like Maurya, Oberois, The Park, the Taj Group of Hotel and Intercontinental. They might even have to settle for the sarkari standards of hospitality. That's if they consider the ITDC hotels to be luxury ones.

It's not as if these big five-star hotels have suddenly adopted a hostile attitude towards phirangis. Neither are they going on strike. All this could happen because both the hoteliers and tour operators have a different set of demands from each other and are refusing to soften their respective stands. And the deadline is February 15.

The fight is essentially over modes of payment. While hoteliers accuse the tour operators of delaying settlement of bills, bringing in lesser tourists under the voucher scheme than promised and paying the lower foreign exchange rate while charging the higher telegraphic transfer (or TT) from tourists, the tour operators are accusing hoteliers ofusing blackmail. Hoteliers are asking tour operators to pay them at the TT rate, to submit vouchers 30 days prior to guest check in and to make all prior payments or else if would not extend the 30-day credit norm to them. If the number rooms reduces more than 10 per cent (against the voucher), then the HAI hotels will levy a one-night retention charge for every room released.

Tour operators today held a press conference wearing black bands on their foreheads in order to protest against this `code of practice' issued by the Hotel Association of India (HAI). The operators have decided to boycott all HAI hotels if their demands are not met by February 15.

The tour operators, at a press conference, today categorically said that they would not pay the TT rate to the hoteliers and the tariffs must be charged in Indian Rupees only.

``These hotels are running in heavy losses and they want to cover up for all that by charging us the higher TT rate,'' says Subash Goyal, President of Indian Association of TourOperators (IATO). The hoteliers, on the other hand, say that the tour operators were notified about having to make payments in TT rate almost a year back and will have to now give the arrears for the period concerned before February 29.

The voucher, according to the hoteliers, has lost its sanctity and operators cancel bookings at even few days notice when the notice period is 30 days. ``There is a 25 per cent wash out of rooms blocked through vouchers,''says R K Puri, Secretary General of HAI. This amounts to around Rs 100 crore of loss in business each year because these rooms (which finally don't get occupied) can't be let out to others even during peak periods.

What's worse, hoteliers accuse the operators of not paying the bills for 60, 90 and even 120 days when the maximum days of credit allowed by them is 30 days. Hoteliers claim that over Rs 60 crore to Rs 70 crore of outstanding payments are lying with the tour operators. All this results in decreased cash flows.

But the tour operators areessentially grumbling over having to pay at the TT rate which they claim works out Re 1 higher than the cash rate. But the hoteliers say that the difference is only of 40 paise when compared with the traveller's cheque or TC rate and 80 paise when compared with the cash rate or the rupee rate. For the hoteliers, the key issue is primarily of non-respect to the voucher and delayed payments. According to Goyal, many operators will have to pay arrears as high as Rs 10 lakh (in lieu of the TT rate) if they abide by the new set of rules set by the hoteliers.