Mahesh Sharma, the Minister of State for Tourism, said in the Lok Sabha that the government of India has begun working on guidelines for accommodation aggregators, and that "is at an initial stage". This was in response to a query from MP Bheemrao Baswanthrao Patil of political party Telangana Rashtra Samithi. Patil had asked the Ministry of Tourism whether the government of India intends to "impose guidelines on accommodation aggregators to help ensure safety, security and service standards that home stay owners and hotels registered with them offer". Accomodation aggregators in India would include the likes of Softbank funded Oyo Rooms, Hotels.com, AirBnB, FabHotels and Tripvillas, as well as offerings from OTA's, including MakeMyTrip (including GoIbibo GoStays), Cleartrip, and Yatra. Accomodation Aggregators? It's worth noting that the question posed was regarding "accommodation aggregators", and not hotel aggregators. This would suggest that the policy would expand beyond the registered entities to also include someone just renting out a room in their apartment for a night, thus including the "sharing economy", which effectively means the likes of AirBnB. Note that AirBnB, which recently raised $450 Million, recently launched its Trips business in India. The difference between a sharing economy model and the traditional hotel aggregator model is that it addresses the inability of the traditional (and regulated) service providers to meet demand. This negatively impacts the revenues of the regulated economy, which have high costs of operation, owing to the regulatory costs, and also charge a premium owing to scarcity of supply in the…
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