Travel technology company OYO has written to the Ministry of Tourism requesting it to investigate the running of Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) and order eviction of erring executive committee members, the firm said in a statement on February 26.

OYO alleged, “FHRAI’s actions are detrimental to small hotel owners. It also points out that constant tussle and that their continued malafide friction with organized players like OYO, discourages SME’s and entrepreneurs from progressing and moving ahead with times and technology.”

The IPO-bound company has urged the government to take necessary action against FHRAI’s “illegally run” executive committee and its members who are “working for self-interest rather than the interest of the small hotel owners.”

In its statement, OYO also cited an order issued by the National Company Law Tribunal's (NCLT) Principal Bench in New Delhi directing the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) to examine the affairs of the FHRAI and ensure that it complies with the provisions of the Companies Act.

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The order stated that this was a necessary course of action due to a “series of litigation that is breeding due to conduct in the affairs of FHRAI”. The tribunal had also pointed out that “personal interest has come to loom over the functioning of FHRAI and this has to be curbed”.

OYO alleges that FHRAI was formed with the intent to promote the travel and tourism industry, but the recent allegations of unfair elections and mismanagement by Hotel and Restaurant Association of Northern India (HRANI) and Hotels and Restaurants Association of Western India (HRAWI), two regional chapters of FHRAI has highlighted vested interests of former office bearers.

The representation by OYO also said that aggregators like OYO have only enabled the industry in India over the last decade and new age players have democratized travel, made hotels and homes more accessible to guests from around the globe. However, the present governing body members of the FHRAI, are running a deleterious and malicious agenda aimed towards ruining the interest of hotel industry at large, and creating hurdles and bottlenecks for new players in the market, who are posing a stiff challenge to the self-serving agenda of certain members of the FHRAI with vested interest, it said.

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