Another hotel body boycotts Zomato Gold service: Report

Mumbai-based Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association (AHAR), which has 8,000 members, said it is unanimously boycotting delivery services by aggregator Zomato under the Zomato Gold programme with immediate effect, The Economic Times reports.

Santosh Shetty, president of AHAR, said that the body is completely against the Zomato Gold delivery scheme and has asked Zomato to scrap it. Zomato has not responded to the association’s demands.

TechCircle has reached out to both parties and is awaiting a response.

Zomato Gold was rolled out in 2017 as a membership program. It offers members one free dish each time they place an order.

The company extended its Gold service to delivery in September this year.

The association wants Zomato to scrap the gold service and end alleged arbitrary commissions.

Shetty also said that the employees of AHAR who have the memberships will discontinue the Zomato Gold services with immediate effect.

“We have not taken any decision on the Zomato Gold dining services, but we are completely against its delivery services,” Shetty added, reports ET.

AHAR also alleged that delivery commissions charged by Zomato goes up to 22-25%. It has also asked Zomato to cap it at 15%, including goods and services tax (GST).

On the other end, the National Restaurant Association of India’s (NRAI) stalemate with Zomato is still on, with the association members staying out of Zomato’s dine-in services.

In August, online food delivery and restaurant booking platform Zomato founder and chief executive Deepinder Goyal took to social media to request restaurant owners to stop the #logout campaign.