Woman turned away by Indian hotel because she was a ”single lady”
A woman was turned away by an Indian hotel despite the fact that she had a reservation because she was travelling solo, The Independent reports.
Nupur Saraswat had booked a room at the Hotel Deccan Erragadda in Hyderabad and she also had an online confirmation for her booking from Goibibo, India’s largest online booking website. Nevertheless, the spoken word artist was denied a room for the mere fact that she was a ”single lady”.
“My first reaction was confusion. I have never experienced anything like that before – it was bizarre. I didn’t really react because I didn’t understand why that policy could exist in the first place,” Saraswat declared.
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“Somehow they decided I was safer on the streets than in the hotel. I was extremely lucky to have arrived early in the morning… This could be you – another hotel, another city… Maybe you’ll arrive on an 11pm flight and they will refuse to let you stay. So here’s my sincere plea – share this post. Make a scene. Make Goibibo listen. Let them know that women travel solo now and we won’t stay indoors ‘for the sake of our own safety’,” she further explained in a Facebook post that was shared over 1,500 times.
Goibibo took swift action and relocated Saraswat in another hotel free of charge, while her money was also refunded and the hotel had been struck off its database pending an investigation.
“Goibibo deeply cares for women. We already have a special hotline to ensure secure and safe fulfillment for our travellers. We plan on creating a separate helpline/chatline for women travellers too. As a platform we do not agree with this no single women ‘policy’ unless the regulator or local authorities ask us to comply. Therefore we have delisted the property in question till as such time, we hear from the authorities or there is a modification to the policy by the hotelier,” said Ashish Kashyap, Goibibo CEO.
Despite this, Saraswat stated that this is not the outcome that she expected, and that she only wanted to raise awareness on solo female travel. “The hotel being delisted has become the conclusion of the story, and that’s not what I wanted or intended. I didn’t want to harm local business – I just wanted the website to consider that something like this can happen in our society (…) This doesn’t end with me or Goibibo – solo travel for women needs to be safer. Women are travelling way more now that they have access to education and money – especially Indian women. I’d love to make some kind of impact in making travelling safer, easier and normalised for women,” she concluded.
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