Earlier, for young couples, it was a big hassle to travel out of town together! Wait, here we are talking about unmarried couples, who are not granted a room to stay together. We all know how the mentality of India is; when unmarried couples seek a hotel room, they are asked thousands of questions like ‘Where is your Mangalsutra’, ‘Aren’t you married’ and much more. These questions are enough to spoil the mood of couples who are out to enjoy a holiday.
No one favors pre-marital physical relationship in India and hence, couples renting a room for spending a night together is a BIG NO. However, with startups such as StayUncle and Oyo, they have got some relief. Yes, recently OYO launched the ‘Relationship Mode’ on it’s platform.
Earlier there was a tag, “No hotel rooms for unmarried couple” but thankfully OYO has overcome it. In this mode, only those hotels are listed which allow unmarried couples to stay. Only local IDs are needed for checking in.
Chief Growth Officer of OYO, Kavikrut says that they analyzed the feedback of guests after which they found that lot of unmarried couples faced inconvenience.
He says
“We are respectful of our partners but we are equally committed to ensuring that every guest feels welcome at OYO. So, our teams worked on solving this problem using a mix of technology and rich content. There is no law in India that prohibits hotels from hosting unmarried guests, or those who belong to the same city as the hotel’s location.”
The team states that with this facility, it becomes easy and transparent for unmarried couples to discover such hotels which offer hassle-free check in process. These hotels would be found on the app of the company as well as on the website.
To access this option, one should go to ‘My Account’ and then change the status. Kavikrut further adds that
“As a customer-focussed business, we are identifying and solving problems that can impact the stay experience. Our promise is there is an OYO for everyone, and with this launch we are making sure couples can identify and check-in to their OYO without any hassle.”
These OYO rooms are available in around 100 cities. With this, it seems OYO and StayUncle would have to face a lot from government officials, as this is something against the culture of India.
What do you have to say about that? Do let us know your thoughts in our comments section below.