Privacy can be difficult to ensure in India. Life is a whirlpool of communities of relatives, neighbors, and friends. The city is crowded and there are curious eyes everywhere.
Enter Oyo, the popular hotel booking platform. Backed by big-name venture capital firms, the company built a trendy reputation as a gateway to “love hotels” for unmarried couples. Inside the affordable rooms, young lovers who had no choice but to secretly kiss in every corner of public parks and shopping malls were able to express their passion behind closed doors.
Now, Oyo is taking a step back from its image as a dating haven. This month, it revised its policy guidelines to give some of its hotel partners the discretion to refuse accommodation to young couples unless they provide proof of marriage.
For now, the change only applies to Meerut, a medium-sized city northeast of New Delhi. The company said the new policy was in response to complaints from civil society groups and was developed “in line with local social sensibilities.”
Oyo’s move sparked memes and backlash on social media, especially among people in their 20s. For many, the event was a reminder of the tension between traditional values and modern ideals that define the lives of millions of young Indians.
Premarital sex remains taboo in this deeply conservative country, where marriages are traditionally arranged by families. It is widely seen as a malicious import from the less-checked West and an affront to Indian culture, and is either cracked down or ignored.
The stigma against sex before marriage is about “family honor,” said Chirodip Majumdar, associate professor at Rabindra Mahavidyalaya University in the eastern state of West Bengal. Nevertheless, research shows that more young people are doing it anyway.
According to Majumdar, attitudes toward premarital sex vary by class, with higher income groups viewing premarital sex more favorably. “They have a wider range of social interactions, more knowledge about how contraception works, and more exposure to Western culture,” he says.
Many young people in India have also embraced liberal attitudes towards dating and sex that transcend caste, class and religion, and arranged marriages remain the norm.
Dating apps like Tinder are just as popular as hookups. A 2022 study published in the journal Sexuality & Culture found that 55 percent of young people in four Indian cities were “crazy about sex,” indicating that norms around sexual behavior may be changing. It was found that “it shows.”
Neha, 34, a Bangalore-based counselor, said that when she and her husband were dating, they rented a room in Oyo twice a week. Neha, who asked that her last name not be used, recalled the critical looks often directed at her by hotel owners, including those not using the Oyo platform.
In some hotels, management asked about their marital status before turning them away.
But Oyo became a central part of their romance, and when the couple married in 2017, their animated video wedding invitation included a reference to the hotel’s platform.
“Everyone knew we were using Oyo,” Neha said, adding, “That’s why we included it in our wedding invitations.”
India’s lack of private space for intimate relationships has created a market for companies like Oyo.
It’s not uncommon to see young lovers secretly kissing under the scorching Delhi summer sun in near-empty movie theaters or under the arches of ruined monuments. The restroom stalls and fitting rooms are all normal. Cyber cafes can become flirtatious zones.
In the acclaimed 2024 film All We Imagine as Right, which depicts the intersecting lives of three women living in Mumbai, one of the characters goes into hiding to have sex with her boyfriend. Find a forest without trees.
Manforce, which bills itself as India’s best-selling condom brand, ran a series of humorous ads last year that featured couples wearing condoms in private corners of public spaces such as cars, parks and movie theaters.
Oyo was founded in 2013 and is backed by investment firms including SoftBank. It expanded into the U.S. in 2019 and acquired the Motel 6 chain last year.
India offers rooms for just 500 rupees a night, no questions asked, or less than $6. The platform is popular with small hotel owners, who have a deal with Oyo that requires them to abide by its standards and use their brand.
On Google, one of the first search questions about Oyo is “Can I stay in Oyo with my girlfriend?” Oyo also serves independent travelers and other customers, but the company is leaning into its image by offering room searches with filters such as “relationship mode.”
But now they are pursuing more family.
in Advertisements that appeared last yeara young couple is sitting at a dinner table with a female family member. Their marital status is unknown. When she told her father that she had booked a weekend trip with Oyo, he looked at them in horror.
When the couple said that they had more fun together with their families, the father looked confused and asked, “What are you talking about?” The next frame shows the entire family checking into a sparkling Oyo hotel. Then the father said, “This is what you’re talking about!”
Pragati KB Contributed to the report.
