Mumbai: Hospitality heads unite against food aggregator at a conference

Hospitality heads unite in show of strength against food aggregator abuse and dominance strangulating industry

The hospitality industry flexed its collective muscle with The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) extending its support to the #Logout movement initiated by the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) in August 2019. A slew of other hospitality bodies have joined the #Logout movement, said industry bigwigs at an 'aggro'(gator) conference held on Wednesday at a Mahalaxmi restaurant.

The hospitality leaders claimed that most aggregators had re-jigged their features and mutual terms have been worked out, but "Zomato Gold stands isolated refusing to budge from its policy of deep discounting and other practices." Anurag Katriar, president, NRAI said the #Logout movement was, "born to combat the draconian policy of deep discounting. The campaign has become more robust because of this unity."

Dictating terms

Joint honorary secretary of FHRAI, Pradeep Shetty, who was part of the five-man panel addressing the media said food aggregators, "are strangulating the aspirations of smaller restaurants, dictating terms and making the operation of restaurants unviable. Discounts cannot build an industry, they can only kill it." Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, president, Hotel and Restaurant Association of India (HRAWI) added, "We have to co-exist with food aggregators. Today, we are looked at as villains, which we are not. We need to sit across the table and talk, so that it's a win-win situation for both.

Impossible discounts

Though the panelists mostly pointed at Zomato, they did at times, broaden the ambit to include food aggregators in general. Jimmy Shaw of HRAWI minced no words when he said, "These are basically food tech professionals masquerading as the hospitality industry and telling us how to run our business. Here is a player who refuses to play ball, insisting it is his way or the highway. We cannot dole out the discounts they are expecting us to."

FOMO factor

Restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani said key words like "predatory practices meant food tech aggregators operated on the principle of Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)." He explained, "They will approach the weakest player in a pool of five and say, 'give us this much discount and we will give you this much business'. Once one desperate player joins in, they prey on the next, saying, 'see we have given that one this much business, you too should join us'. This is the FOMO factor. In this way, the small guy bleeds to death. We joined the aggregators to get customer loyalty, to build a relationship with our customers, but with this accent on deep discounts all we have got are one night stands."

The industry leaders spelt out a five-point charter, which is part of their objective of what they termed as a campaign of #takingbackcontrol. The charter says, "Always consult us, do not appease the customer at the cost of the restaurants, remember that we have to make profits while you (aggregators) take care of your valuation, stop policing us and finally, do not compete with us." The hospitality honchos signed off, "We are looking to resolve issues, but if confrontation is forced on us, we are ready to fight."

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