Traveling can be tricky for unmarried couples looking for a little privacy in India.
Accommodations routinely refuse to let this growing segment of the population share rooms – especially those who want to book a hotel in the city where they already live.
Therefore, a change in policy of a budget hospitality booking platform in a small Indian town has attracted a lot of attention both within and outside the country.
It all started in early January, when OYO Rooms issued “new check-in guidelines” for its partner properties in the northwestern city of Meerut, about 80 kilometers from Delhi, stating that hotels there could refuse bookings from unmarried couples at their discretion.
The move quickly drew criticism online, because the brand has long presented itself as a safe haven for unmarried couples.
“When it launched, that was their entire tagline: ‘no questions asked,’ to the point that everyone knows that’s what OYO is for: it’s not just a hotel chain, but a hotel for couples looking for privacy,” says a 25-year-old veteran media professional who has booked with OYO in Delhi, told CNN on condition of anonymity.
Unlike many countries, where it is common for unmarried couples to share a room together, Indian customs still heavily frown on this practice.
Launched in 2012, OYO was one of the first platforms to address this growing group of travelers, tagging hotels as “couple-friendly” on its app and website. Other startups such as Stay Uncle, Brevistay and Nestaway have since followed in OYO’s footsteps, offering hourly rooms and rental properties that ensure safe access for unmarried couples.
Many see OYO’s turnaround, however small, as symbolic of the ongoing clash between traditional Indian values and an evolving, modern society.
“We usually think of privacy as the right to be left alone or without interference or interference, but in the Indian cultural context that actually goes against our cultural orientation, which is predominantly collectivist,” said Shagufa Kapadia, professor at the Department of Human Development. Development and Family Studies and Director of the Women’s Studies Research Center at India’s Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.
OYO said its decision, which is specific to Meerut, was in response to “feedback OYO has received in the past from community organizations” in the area.
“While we respect individual liberties and personal freedom, we also recognize our responsibility to listen to and work with civil society groups in the micro-markets in which we operate,” Pawas Sharma, head of OYO’s North India region, said in a statement announcing the policy change. .
The family versus the couple
An OYO ad released in 2024 plays on the company’s existing reputation as a platform that offers rooms to unmarried couples seeking privacy and intimacy.
In the commercial, a couple is seen telling their parents that they have booked an OYO room and that their family should accompany them to ‘have fun together’, eliciting shocked looks around the dining table.
The ad then cuts to the family at an OYO hotel with a voiceover: “This is not the case That OYO hotel.” Many social media users viewed the video, along with its recent move in Meerut, as attempts by OYO to brand itself as family-friendly.
According to Kapadia, the family unit has always taken priority over the couple, and even after marriage, the privacy granted to couples is ‘conditional’.
OYO’s recent decision to allow hotels to turn away unmarried couples in Meerut can be seen as a way to appease the society in which they operate, she added.
Kapadia noted that religious and right-wing groups often harass institutions for doing things deemed harmful to Indian society, such as providing rooms to unmarried couples in smaller towns like Meerut, located in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP). .
UP is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and led by Prime Minister Ajay Singh Bisht, who goes by the name Yogi Adityanth and routinely dresses in a saffron garment similar to that of Hindu saints.
“In addition to civil society groups, it is now also the state that is interfering in private lives, creating a fatherly character in an already patriarchal society that increasingly infantilizes young people, especially women, as a means of control,” Kapadia said.
CNN has contacted the district administration in Meerut for comment.
Meanwhile, managers of hotels in Meerut affected by the new check-in guidelines seem to have mixed views.
“I have no say in whether such a policy is good or bad. The only thing is, we don’t want fingers pointed at us, we don’t want organizations or community groups to come knocking at our door asking why we let such couples in,” said the manager of one of the 21 hotels. listed on OYO in the city, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity.
Care for LGBT Indians
The owner of another hotel in Meerut, who did not want to be named, told CNN that it was up to him who he allowed to stay at his hotel and that unmarried couples were not welcome.
“Absolutely not. We don’t allow it. We don’t want anyone to use it as a shady thing. That is wrong,” he said.
‘It’s my hotel. I have the right to choose who I let in. It doesn’t matter if they have a booking on OYO or any other travel website, these are my values.”
Although the owner made it clear that unmarried couples from out of town could stay there on “rare” occasions, he did not tolerate locals, assuming that any unmarried couple would use a hotel to have sex.
That’s disappointing news for same-sex couples, who cannot legally marry in India.
Even being able to get a hotel room doesn’t mean a same-sex couple can sleep easily.
The 25-year-old from Delhi identifies as a bisexual woman. She says that even at OYO hotels, it is impossible to avoid judging eyes. During a recent stay, she says, “my date looked like a tomboy, so even though we were two girls, it was quite obvious and you could tell they (the hotel staff) had a problem with it.
“There was a stain on the bed so we complained and the staff member just said, ‘What next? You just have to sit, right? There is a sofa; You can sit there,” she added.
If hotels on the OYO platform have the freedom to deny accommodation to unmarried couples in a smaller city like Meerut, people seeking privacy will have nowhere to go, she added.
“I live with my family. I can’t just bring someone over. In India, it is very common for people, especially women, to live with their families until you get married,” she said. While there may be some alternatives in Delhi, she believes there are none in cities like Meerut.
However, a hotel owner in Meerut told CNN that his rooms would remain accessible to all couples despite the new policy.
“Until there are orders from the high court saying that you cannot take action against any couple as long as they are adults, then there can be no such policy, there is nothing OYO can do about that,” said Mukesh Gupta, owner of Hotel O Subhadra Residency, one of the top rated OYO hotels in the city. His hotel was still labeled as ‘couple-friendly’ on the app and website.
This problem is unlikely to go away. As the country modernizes, it is increasingly common for couples to live together before marriage or to get to know each other away from the prying eyes of their families.
“In the beginning of our relationship, OYO helped us a lot, because I don’t know how we would have done it at that point,” says 28-year-old Terrance, who did not want to use his last name, about his relationship. with his female partner.
Although the couple now lives together, they lived with relatives for much of their seven-year relationship.
Terrance says OYO’s recent moves have him concerned about the safety of other young couples in similar situations.
“If they don’t have an option, sometimes it can’t end well; they might look for a shady spot and it could end badly,” he said.
Kapadia, the professor, agreed that couples will always find ways to be together, but a lack of safe spaces spells disaster, especially for women who carry the false burden of carrying the family’s honor.
“In India, parks are a space that many couples use for intimacy and everyone knows about it and to some extent that is okay, but police or park rangers often take that opportunity to harass young couples because they know they are likely to be together are. without the knowledge of their parents,” she said.
The rights of the unmarried
As Gupta noted, there are no laws in India against unmarried couples staying together in hotels, in their own cities or elsewhere. Despite this, hoteliers continue to deny them rooms, in several cases with the support of police or government authorities.
In 2015, police raided several hotels and lodges near Mumbai, arresting dozens of couples. In that case, the Bombay High Court said that “the action of the police is a clear violation of the right to privacy protected by the Constitution of India and is a facet of the right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution of India.”
In 2019, a Madras high court also ruled in a similar case that “there are no laws or regulations prohibiting unmarried persons of the opposite sex from occupying hotel rooms as guests.”
When OYO was contacted for further clarification on their new policy in Meerut, they declined to comment.
Apart from the impact on Indians’ right to privacy, Kapadia is also concerned about the long-term impact on tourism in the country.
“In many countries, couples choose to spend their lives together without getting married, so if hoteliers start denying them rooms, it would not remain such an attractive destination,” she said.
However, hotel owner Gupta said the properties that chose to turn away couples were likely more concerned about those who had local ID cards.
Following OYO’s move, Tejas Gowda, a member of a militant Hindu nationalist group called Bajrang Dal, told reporters last week that he had appealed to the police commissioner and the government in Bengaluru, India’s technology hub, to to introduce a similar ‘law’ banning unmarried women. couples sharing hotel rooms.
“We must respect the tradition of our country,” he said. “By allowing unmarried couples into the rooms, many illegal activities are taking place both within the state and the country.”
These are exactly the demands that scare the 25-year-old.
“Under the Constitution, we have a right to privacy,” she said. “Why do we close every damn door these people can go to? Why is it someone else’s decision what people do in the privacy of a hotel room?”
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