What Do Couple Friendly Hotels Mean

by Puja Sharma Content Writer

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India is a land of diversity. Ancient traditions married to the artistic, passionate souls of its citizens. However, as an ever-expanding country, India is slowly but surely becoming more advanced and leaving some of its more archaic traditions behind. One of this is the acceptance of unmarried couples staying in the same hotel room.

Most hotels deny a room to unmarried couples, even though they have no legal authority to deny a room on the basis of marriage, according to lawyers and the Hotel Association of India. The Hotel Association of India (HAI) is an umbrella organization which overlooks more than 280 resorts and hotels in India. HAI’s spokesperson, Bharat Bhushan, completely denies any awareness of such rules.

Since there are no legal ramifications that are present, one can only assume that these unofficial guidelines still followed strictly by some hotels are a case of moral policing. While live-in relationships were considered to be taboo for several decades, the apex court of India had sought to remove the stigma of relationships outside the bond of matrimony in 2013, by ruling “Live-in or marriage-like relationship is neither a crime nor a sin though socially unacceptable in this country. The decision to marry or not to marry or to have a heterosexual relationship is intensely personal”. It was a landmark judgment, ruled by a bench headed by Justice K S Radhakrishnan.

However, this judgment does not seem to have had a huge impact on the hospitality industry, apart from a few luxury hotels in Bangalore and a number of resorts in Goa. While 5-star hotels, especially in Bangalore, do not seem to make an issue out of this problem, it is still prevalent in smaller inns and hotels. At times when these hotels do rent out rooms to unmarried couples, they are asked to sign in as 'Mr. and Mrs.’ in the hotel register. Hotels state that this is because it’s better to be safe than sorry. This refusal usually stems from fear of harassment by the cops and local authorities, or attacks from the moral police, who propagate vigilantism against anything they deem immoral.

While there are several legal ways to tackle this issue, the unwritten rules, and the discretionary measures make it a very challenging fight. For now, the only solution that is guaranteed to help you rent a room is to find a suitable hotel that will be willing to host you and your partner. It has to be taken into consideration that if the hospitality industry doesn’t step up its game, a huge chunk of their consumers might start looking at alternative options.