The story of residences’ protest against “Shab”; The challenge of trust in online tourism

Online accommodation reservation has become one of the main pillars of modern tourism today and is an experience through which the traveler can travel to a region with peace of mind. On the other hand, the host can think about the income and development of his accommodation and create a new experience for the travelers; But this quick one-click selection can also lead to challenges.

For some time, the accommodations have been complaining about the non-payment of their sums from the night online reservation site, and since no contract has been registered, they cannot file an official complaint; “Rasoul Majidi”, the manager of “Timere” eco-tourism resort, tells “Kejaro” about the start of the delay in the payments of the Shab platform:

Last year, payment problems started from the night platform; First, the deposits were not made on time and there was a delay of about 20 days. From around January of last year, these delays became more serious and after some time, only part of the amounts were settled. As Eid night approached, we still had reservations; Some of them were paid; But another part is still not settled. Therefore, since May this year, we no longer had any cooperation with them. Of course, this problem has not only happened to us, and our other colleagues in different cities faced non-payment or delayed payment of their arrears from the night platform. About 20 to 30 tourist resorts have not received their reservation money from Shab platform since Eid.

Referring to the difficult conditions these days in the field of tourism and the delay in payments, he says:

Now the conditions have become so difficult that after accepting the guests, the accommodations themselves have to seek to receive their money from the platform; It means that the passenger pays on the site; But the residences must continue to receive their own cash for a long time. About 20% of the fee will be deducted from that amount. With this chaotic situation of tourism, it is really difficult for us to continue working. In this situation, we have to beg for our money. As soon as part of our income is reduced as platform profit, it has put a lot of pressure on us. In total, we demand about 30 million tomans from this platform; Part of it paid; But another part is still undecided.

Some tourist accommodations were satisfied with cooperation with Shab; But now it is not clear why he did not pay for the accommodations. The same comments and opinions about late payment or non-payment of residences have been recorded in cyber space. The manager of the Timreh tourist resort says about the problems of the Shab platform:

I don’t know what is really happening at night and why the payments are not made! When the tourist pays, the money changes hands between the traveler, the platform and the accommodation; Therefore, these delays are not logical. It is possible that the company’s funds have been spent elsewhere and paying for accommodations is not a priority for them; Because otherwise, no collection would deliberately question its own validity.

Majidi says about the contract, the night complaint and the responsibility of the Ministry of Tourism regarding the cooperation of accommodations with online booking platforms:

We have not filed an official complaint until today, and I don’t think there is a written contract with online reservation sites; Because we moved forward based on trust, and we thought that payments would be made through dialogue and follow-up. To investigate the issue, we first went to the Cultural Heritage Department; But they said that this platform is not under our control at all. Then we went to the community of ecotourism residences of the province. They also said that the night platform has received its activity license from the Ministry of Tourism; But in practice, there is no direct supervision by the ministry on the performance of these types of reservation sites; In fact, no specific institution is responsible for this situation.

It seems that the night site has paid off some of its debts; At the same time, many other arrears were not announced. Abdulhamid Heydari, the manager of the “Maravi” eco-tourism resort, explains to “Kajaro” about the termination of cooperation with the Shab platform:

About two to three months ago, our cooperation with the night platform ended; At that time, payments were delayed; Sometimes they promised that they would settle in the next 15 days or one month; But this did not happen. For this reason, we decided to stop the cooperation. Shab was one of the sites that we had good cooperation with before; He paid quickly and was responsive, even in responding to customers, they had a regular system and good solutions; But unfortunately, the situation changed and I don’t know what happened to delay the payment of accommodation. Apart from us, several other residences have not yet received their demands since Eid.

“Yavar Abiri”, the head of the professional associations of Iran’s ecotourism lodges, tells “Kejaro” about why there is no legal process and signing of a specific contract between online booking platforms and ecotourism lodges:

There is no formal agreement between some of these platforms and accommodations, and this is a bilateral issue between the platforms and accommodations themselves. During the meeting I had with the executive of the night platform, it seems that they were going to do big advertising projects and develop their own business even though they received the money from the passengers; But they postponed the payment of the residences, although they deduct about 20% of their commission, and this non-payment has caused many problems for the residences.

The head of the community of professional associations of eco-tourism lodges continues about the number of eco-tourism lodges and the amounts they demand from the night platform:

Of course, after the meeting we had with them, they promised that the debts would be paid within the next two to three weeks; But with this method, if there is no supervision on the platforms, the stone will not be blocked; The services are provided by the accommodation and the money is received by the Shab site, they should not trouble the accommodation for their promotional work or any other issue. Some residences have stopped their cooperation with this platform since May, and the amount owed starts from one million and finally reaches 37 million tomans.

Abiri also explains about the legal solutions to pursue the rights of residences:

Legal follow-up can be done from the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation of Tourism Services of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism; But the issue is complicated because some platforms do not have an official license from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage; Rather, they got permission from the President’s Science and Technology Vice-Chancellor. This parallelism has made monitoring difficult; That is, if the ministry revokes their license, they still have a license from the President’s Vice President for Science and Technology.

He explains about the continued cooperation of ecotourism accommodations with online booking platforms:

Residences have two options in such situations; They should either continue to work with these platforms and risk problems, or exit them entirely to avoid further financial damage. In the current situation, due to the problems caused by the war and the decrease in passengers, the accommodations cannot wait for 6 months for the sites to pay their arrears; So it doesn’t make sense to continue working with a platform that doesn’t deliver on promises.

Despite the rapid growth of online booking platforms in the tourism industry, delays in payments and the lack of clear contracts between systems and accommodations, this issue has become the main challenge of this field; But financial transparency, the way contracts are set up, and more careful monitoring by responsible institutions can prevent such problems from recurring in the online tourism industry.