No Thanks For Sharing

• No Thanks for Sharing

Most of the 400-odd people who got licences to run BnB services during the Games
suffered the same fate. Two-and-a-half years ago, Gupta listed Prakash Kutir on
global accommodation finder Airbnb. Since then, his guests have all been
foreigners who want a glimpse of the Indian culture. Airbnb is among a clutch of
companies giving rise to the sharing economy in many parts globally.
Home Truths
"Home stays ought to be attractive since many of them cost as little as Rs 1,000 a
night while even budget hotels charge around Rs 2,500. " But it speaks volumes
that other companies which sought to emulate Airbnb have changed track. CEO
Ritesh Agarwal, all of 21, spells out the expectations Srivastava referred to. " "When
I book a room, I should get instant confirmation and the price should be
predictable.
When I land in a city, I should be able to locate or call the hotel easily. The hotel
should meet my standards relating to temperature, cleanliness, room service and
ease of check in. Again, home stay hosts often lay down conditions that hotels do
not. "Often, Indians don't want a side business interfering with their daily lives,"
says Yogendra Vasupal, CEO, Stayzilla.com, which lists 20,000 'properties', both
hotels and home stays.
• Stayzilla recently raised $20 million in PE funding led by Nexus Ventures. Cab
aggregators , too, have tweaked their strategy in India. In India, the only car
owners who register with Uber are those who drive for a living. "We have a vehicle
financing scheme to enable drivers to buy cars at cheap rates," he says.
" "In effect, we are turning drivers into small businessmen. "'When I book a room, I
should get instant confirmation and the price should be predictable,' says RITESH
AGARWAL, CEO, OYO Rooms. " But services Uber provides elsewhere, such as Uber
Pool or Split Fare, where passengers on a common route split the fare with the
money being deducted from their bank accounts, have not been introduced in
India. " "In the West, people have no hang-ups about driving others around.
" People don't want to be thought of as taxi drivers," Bhatia adds. The latest
entrants are Tripda from Germany, with services in 11 other countries, which
entered last November, and BlaBlaCar from France, with services in 12, which
came in this January. "It is puzzling why none of the start-ups in this field have
taken off so far," says Samir Kumar, MD at VC firm Inventus Capital which has
invested in MoveInSync.
• Low Hiring
In her book, Botsman estimates the global peer-to-peer sharing or rental industry at more than $26 billion. In
India, the industry is still very nascent. "The going has been tough," says founder Nikhil Chhabra, an Indian
Institute of Management, Kolkata graduate. " People are sceptical about sharing." If renter and hirer are located
far apart, the deal also involves high transportation costs - a further disincentive.
Chhabra even sought advice from Erento CEO Rob Paterson, but it has not made the going easier. " "Often the
value of the product does not justify the time and effort spent in renting it. "Philanthropy is a much better
established concept in India than sharing," he adds. Many customers remain unsure if the home stay or the
product available for hire is as good as the online advertisement claims.
Rentongo's Chhabra feels intervening in every transaction, rather than merely providing a platform for rental
classifieds, could give customers more confidence. Safety, especially in shared cabs, became a huge concern after
the alleged rape of a woman passenger by an Uber car driver in Delhi last December. Uber remains banned due to
regulatory challenges in several global cities, including Fukuoka in south-west Japan and Thailand. Some of its
specific services like UberPOP are banned in Germany and France.
In India, the Uber's services along with those of other app-based taxi-services like Ola are banned until they obtain
the radio-taxi licenses. Starting with a pilot project in India, Safetipin will also be provided in cities like Colombian
capital Bogota and Kenyan capital Nairobi. Some others are using social media for basic profile checks. Tripda only
accepts passengers with Facebook accounts so that those sharing rides can check one another's profile
information.
"The younger people are, the easier it is to change the way they do things," says Pedro Meduna, Global CEO,
Tripda. 'In the west, people have no hang-ups about driving others around.