CAIT alleges misuse of data and uneven competition by MakeMyTrip, demand govt to investigate
Dec 03, 2023
New Delhi [India], December 3 : The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has alleged misuse of Indian travellers' data by online travel company MakeMyTrip and expressed concern about data security and uneven competition in the travel and tourism sector.
The Confederation has urged Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to examine the business modules of such companies and asked them to take necessary action if required.
CAIT has also raised apprehension about some companies having Chinese investments operating in India's travel and tourism sector, saying that it has disrupted domestic involvement in this sector.
CAIT National President BC Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal alleged that the travel and tourism company Make My Trip has huge amount of Chinese money invested in this company.
They have also alleged that five out of 10 directors on the company's board are representatives of a Chinese company, Trip.com, which is controlled from Shanghai.
Another company of Trip.com is Sky Scanner, which compares cheap tickets for air travel between different airlines and indirectly creates an environment of unhealthy competition in the market by providing an advantage to MakeMyTrip, which is construed as unhealthy competition, they alleged.
It is known that a large number of people book air tickets every day on the MakeMyTrip portal, due to which a large amount of people's data is collected and it is suspected that this data is being misused somewhere and might be in control of its parent company Trip.com, they further claimed.
Bhartia and Khandelwal said that these companies and their affiliated companies have a large amount of personal data of the people of the country and many other important information.
There is a possibility of such data going out of the country due to the investment or control of the Chinese people, they said. It is necessary to investigate every company that is operating in India but in which Chinese investment has been made, they added.
According to CAIT, in the last few years, the travel and tourism business in India has engaged more than 10 lakh travel agents spread across the country, but in the last few years, with the help of Chinese and other foreign investments, some big companies have completely taken over this business and now they do all the bookings through their portals and have been able to create a monopoly in this sector.
CAIT said that when small and big travel agents and tour operators were working in the country and providing employment to a large number of common people, this business was running with healthy competition and the consumer had choices.
However, since the era of online booking, many companies, including Make My Trip, have almost eliminated travel agents through their business models, which is not a good sign for the country's economy, CAIT said.
In response to these allegations, MakeMyTrip said that these are "factually incorrect" and seem to have been made with "malicious intent".
"MakeMyTrip is a leading Indian travel platform that has been in operation for more than two decades. We have earned our customers' trust through our steadfast focus on customer satisfaction while simultaneously fostering the Indian business ecosystem," a spokesperson from the company said.
Publicly listed since 2010, MakeMyTrip upholds the highest governance standards and provides multiple levels of data security for its operations, in complete compliance with the laws of all the jurisdictions in which it operates, the spokesperson added.
"The platform has successfully expanded overseas with our best-in-class offerings. Publicly listed since 2010, MakeMyTrip upholds the highest governance standards and provides multiple levels of data security for its operations, in complete compliance with the laws of all the jurisdictions in which it operates. The allegations are factually incorrect and seem to have been made with malicious intent," the company spokesperson said.
