Responding to accusations of operating in an environment that favours global players, over their domestic peers, Booking Holdings chief executive Glenn Fogel said that the world’s second-largest travel company was following the laws of the land, as laid down by its regulators. Nasdaq-listed Booking Holdings, which was previously known as Priceline Group, competes with the likes of homegrown operators, such as Nasdaq-listed MakeMyTrip, the country’s largest online travel player, and Yatra Online, as well as Soft-Bank Group-backed online hospitality company OYO, in Asia’s third-largest economy.
“This is absolutely something I feel very strongly about. We believe we follow all the rules and the regulations, and we do whatever is appropriate in every place we operate in,” Fogel told ET.
The comments come at a time when a number of Indian entrepreneurs have bemoaned the lack of a strong regulatory environment in the country, which they say, unduly favour international behemoths, such as listed entities such as Amazon and Booking, as well as Uber, the world’s most richly-valued startup.
The main issues rivals have raised against Booking is lack of two-factor authentication required when paying on the platform, and that the company does not pay Goods & Services Tax (GST) here given its registration overseas.
Home-grown founders have stated that foreign entities, operating in India, violate RBI’s two-factor authentication rules in spirit, by leveraging their non-Indian entities to accept card payments from Indian customers, as they use international payments gateway and bank account to receive the same.
“If somebody feels that the government was or is not right, and (the laws) need to be changed, then that’s certainly the thing to do. Go out there and change the laws. We just follow the rules. We don’t make them,” Fogel said.
For Booking Holdings, India has emerged as a critical market, along with China. The country’s domestic travel market has been estimated to grow at 11-11.5% to $48 billion by 2020, with the biggest contributor, air travel expected to grow at 15% to $30 billion. Hotels will grow at 13% to $13 billion by 2020, according to a report jointly published by Google and Boston Consulting Group last year. “We recognise that India is a very important travel market for us. It’s been growing strongly. Because we are a global player, we want to be strong everywhere,” Fogel said.
“It (India) has been a very competitive market for some time… We don’t know how the ultimate shape of the market will end up. But we have significant resources and assets. We have capital, and thousands of technologists, who have come up with great products, and we have a good brand,” he added.