Mysuru: Hotel Owners’ Association and Hotel Owners’ Association Charitable Trust had organised a meeting of owners of lodges, resorts and service apartments at Kuthethur Seetharama Bhavana in Krishnamurthypuram yesterday to address the problems with commission percentage of Online Travel Agents (OTA).

Addressing the meeting, Trust President Ravi Shastri said that OTAs like OYO and Make My Trip were deducting a commission of 25 to 30 % from the hotel bookings and remitting the balance to the hotels. He contended that sometimes a huge discount was offered by the OTAs and added that coupled with commission it was a huge loss to hotel owners.

The Association is upset with the aggregators and accused them of affecting their business. The meeting attended by the owners of various hotels, lodges, resorts and the service apartments decided not to allow any aggregator, OTA or enablers to collect above 18% commission on any booking in any form. The meeting also decided to sign a new agreement with the OTAs on Feb. 9 where new terms and conditions will be added.

General Secretary of the Association Raghavendra Tantri urged the hotel owners not to sign any individual agreement with the OTAs.  The Association members said that the OTAs must be enablers but they are making more profit than the hotel owners. Representatives of OTAs also participated in the meet and tried to clarify the issues.

Association President C. Narayanagowda said the Association will cancel the agreement with OTAs that are not resolving their grievances. He further said that a few OTAs like Booking.com, Yatra.com and Clear Trip had come forward to accept a commission of 15%.