The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has alleged misuse of Indian travellers data by online travel company MakeMyTrip and expressed concern over data security and uneven competition in the travel and tourism sector.
The CAIT urged the government to examine the business modules of such companies and ensure necessary action if required.
Raising a big question mark on some big companies having Chinese investments operating in India’s travel and tourism sector, it said this had disrupted the domestic involvement in this sector and by collecting huge data of travellers through transactions, the possibilities of misuse or transfer of data and creation of an uneven level playing field is apprehended.
The confederation urged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to examine the business module of such companies and necessary action if required.
CAIT National President BC Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal on Friday said the travel and tourism company, Make My Trip by virtue of its huge amount of Chinese money invested in this company, 5 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.
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 apprehended that this data is being misused somewhere and might be in the control of its parent company Trip.com.
Bhartia and Khandelwal said these companies and their affiliate companies have a large amount of personal data of the people of the country and 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. It is necessary to investigate every company that is operating in India but in which Chinese investment has been made.
According to the CAIT, in recent years, the travel and tourism business in India has been done by more than 10 lakh travel agents spread across the country who were providing huge employment 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.
The CAIT said 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 a choice, but since the era of online booking, many companies including companies like Make My Trip have almost eliminated travel agents through their business model, which is not a good sign for the country’s economy. From this point of view, the government should review this sector and if data is being misused or unhealthy competition is growing, then it is very important to stop it in time.