Tag Archives: OYO rooms

Hotelivate has kicked off its 6th Hotel Operations Summit India (HOSI) at Taj Palace, New Delhi with stimulating discussions on topics pertaining to the hospitality industry. HOSI, the only dedicated forum for hotel professionals in the region, aims to empower today’s hospitality leaders through enabling conversations on management and operations-related issues, the rapidly evolving marketplace, latest industry trends, benchmarking and best practices. With the focus on increasing the diaspora of the speaker by bringing in leaders from businesses that are intricately tied up with the hospitality industry, the programme encompassed a series of keynote addresses by distinguished speakers and thought-provoking group discussions. Notable speakers included industry leaders such as Anshuman Bapna, Chief Product Officer, Goibibo; Dilip Puri, Founder and CEO, Indian School of Hospitality; Jiggs Kalra, Mentor and Culinary Director, Massive Restaurants; Raj Rana, Chief Executive Officer – South Asia, Radisson Hotel Group; Rattan Keswani, Deputy Managing Director, Lemon Tree Hotels; Navjit Ahluwalia, Senior Vice President and Country Head – India, Hilton; Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, OYO Rooms; Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director and CEO, Indian Hotels Company, to name a few.

BirdRes, the B2B distribution channel from Bird Group, has joined hands with OYO, the budget hotel aggregator. With this association, BirdRes would give OYO access to its nationwide network of travel agents and help expand its business in the India market. Rakesh Mehta, Manager – Operations, BirdRes said, “We are pleased that OYO has chosen BirdRes as their preferred B2B partner. This partnership will offer BirdRes customers an easy access to book OYO Rooms for their clients through a simple and hassle-free payment process. Further, it will offer OYO a large platform to offer their services to a wide range of travel agents all over India. At BirdRes, we continue to offer flexible and user-friendly solutions to our partners and customers.” On the partnership, Abhinav Sinha, COO, OYO, said, “We are glad to partner with BirdRes for our channel expansion efforts. With over 25,000 registered Travel Agents, the platform provides us seamless access to this preferred network of India’s top corporates and mid-sized businesses. It enables us to offer OYO’s hassle-free stay proposition to a new set of corporate travelers across the country.”

After venturing in to Malaysia last year, OYO Rooms is now entering Nepal with the launch of its debut hotel in Kathmandu.  Launched in 2013, OYO’s network has grown to 7000 hotels in 200 cities.  Nepal is the second overseas market for OYO, after its successful venture into Malaysia in January 2016 where it has now grown to 200 hotels. Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, OYO, said, “OYO has been at the forefront of the small and budget hotels revolution in India. Building the category grounds-up, we have employed technology and operational acumen to deliver delight to our customers and unparalleled benefits to partners. Our network has witnessed robust growth to become the largest in India. After our successful overseas foray in Malaysia, we are now thrilled to offer OYO’s hassle-free and standardized stay experience to travellers visiting Nepal.”

OYO Rooms  has launched a self-serve platform for business travellers on its mobile App, called OYO for Business. The platform offers rooms which cater specifically to the needs of corporate travellers and include amenities like air-conditioned rooms equipped with flat-screen television, free Wi-Fi, complimentary breakfast and 24×7 customer-care support. The rooms are present in over 6000 hotels spread across 180 cities in India. Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO – OYO, said, “OYO has ushered in an era of reliable customer experience in the highly fragmented and unpredictable category of unbranded hotels in India. We are thrilled to extend our brand promise to business travellers across India’s premier corporates, SMEs and start-ups. We are confident that business travel in India will become more rewarding and hassle-free once booked through OYO for Business.”

OYO Rooms has expanded its portfolio in the North East, and is offering more than 250 standardised rooms in Gangtok and Darjeeling, to meet a range of budgets – from as low as Rs. 999 per night for standard rooms, to premium rooms for Rs. 2500 – Rs. 4000 per night. OYO Rooms are available in popular tourist spots like Tiger Hills and Mall Road in Darjeeling, and Tsango Lake, MG Marg in Gangtok. These hotels are situated in prime locations, and travellers can enjoy the scenic view of the Himalayan range, including the breathtaking snow-peaks of Kanchenjunga, straight from their rooms. Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and  CEO, OYO said, “We are thrilled to establish a strong network in the beautiful cities of Darjeeling and Gangtok. Our teams have worked very hard to deliver OYO’s level of standardization and predictability of guest-experience in the hotels here. Many travellers who want to visit the North-east hesitate due to concerns about lack of trusted accommodation options. It makes me very happy to assure them that with OYO now present in this region, they can plan their travel without any worry. The hospitality sector is still underdeveloped in the North-East and we are certain that the introduction of OYO’s standardized affordable stays will attract more tourists. We look forward to welcoming guests from across the country.” Speaking about the current business trends Ritesh added, “We receive queries for North-East from across the country, but Darjeeling and Gangtok receive the highest number of queries from Kolkata (40%), followed by Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi (15% each). Kolkata accounts for 30% of the bookings in Darjeeling and Gangtok while Delhi contributes 12% bookings in the region. This summer …

OYO Rooms has partnered with open digital payments company, PayPal to enable OYO Rooms’ customers across the globe to seamlessly pay for their bookings internationally. Speaking on the partnership, Hamish Moline, Regional Merchant Services, PayPal APAC, said, “The Indian e-commerce sector is at a stage where growth is exponential and with this comes increased risk. Growth of new age businesses like OYO Rooms can be further accelerated if they are protected against online payment risks and frauds. PayPal’s technology protects merchants such as OYO Rooms against unauthorized transactions and mitigates associated risks. We are proud to have tied-up with OYO Rooms and look forward to aid their growth through our holistic payments technology in every way possible.” Abhinav Sinha, COO, OYO Rooms, spoke about the partnership, “We are focused on utilising technology to enhance guest experience and solve customer problems. This tie-up with PayPal will assist us in delivering a seamless payment experience through reduced friction during payment process. PayPal is a global leader in payments and we look forward to their network supporting our growth.” Having established its market leadership in India, OYO Rooms recently forayed into South East Asia through launch of operations in Malaysia. PayPal constantly works to maintain and enhance the security, reliability and responsiveness of the secure payments platform to allow 179 million active consumers and millions of merchants across 203 markets around the world to pay and get paid with confidence every day. PayPal’s Seller Protection program helps guard merchants from losing money to claims and chargebacks.

ixigo, in partnership with OYO Rooms and Cleartrip, launched ixibook, an in-app booking platform which will allow travellers to make bookings for flights and hotels within its app without being redirected to a third-party app or website. ixigo has collaborated with Cleartrip, and OYO Rooms, as its launch partners for flights and hotels respectively. Stuart Crighton, CEO, Cleartrip and Ritesh Agarwal, CEO, OYO Rooms said that this is the first-of-its-kind paradigm where an online travel agency and meta-search collaborate closely to create a better user experience and the travel agency will be able to expand their reach to engage leisure travel enthusiasts. On the launch, Aloke Bajpai, ixigo Co¬founder and CEO said, “This is a first of its kind innovation in the Indian travel market. With ixibook, we will deliver a much smoother customer experience for ixigoers and enhance conversions for our partners by allowing users to book with them natively within our app. We expect to move over 30 per cent of our flight and hotel bookings to ixibook within the next few months, as well as add more partners to ixibook later this year.” The app is currently available on andriod and an iOS version will be launched soon. The app allows a user to book a flight or hotel in just one tap , enabling direct booking and saving the  user’s time by shortening the conversion funnel.

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has tied up with OYO Rooms to offer standardised accommodation and a convenient booking platform to rail travellers. OYO Rooms will power the IRCTC hotel-booking page, offering their inventory and promise of standardizsd amenities to Rail passengers. Speaking on the tie-up, CMD, IRCTC Dr. A.K.Manocha said, “We are committed to drive efficiencies and enhance our service through innovation. OYO Rooms has propelled the hotel market in India towards new horizon and pioneered the standardisation of affordable hotel-rooms. This partnership contributes another chapter to the successful narrative of Made in India initiatives and how tech-enabled solutions will power the next wave of innovation. We have made the necessary technology integrations and will be actively communicating about this newly available option through e-mailers, information on e-tickets so that our travellers can explore and utilise these services.” Abhinav Sinha, COO OYO Rooms said, “We are honoured and delighted to power the hotels-booking engine of IRCTC and serve Indian railway passengers. With this tie-up IRCTC customers will have ready access to OYO’s inventory of predictable, standardised and affordable hotel accommodation, across 170 cities in India. As India’s widest and largest network, we feel confident of catering to the passengers’ needs and look forward to making this alliance a great success.” He added, “OYO Rooms was conceived with a vision to change the way travellers view out-of-home stay. Our aim is to deliver home-like comfort at affordable prices so that wherever you may be travelling to, you would want to stay at an OYO booked through IRCTC-OYO network. The first step towards fulfilling this mandate was to expand our footprint to provide the comfort of a wide network. …

Budget hotel rooms aggregator, OYO Rooms has acquired its rival ZO Rooms. OYO’s largest investor, SoftBank has listed the transaction in its most recent financial report. However, the value of the acquisition has not been disclosed. The acquisition came after Zostel Hospitality, the promoters of ZO Rooms, failed to raise additional funds for further growth from their existing investors or bring in new investors. Zo Rooms raised roughly USD 35 million from Tiger Global and Orios Management in 2005.

OYO Rooms has crossed its one millionth hotel check-in. OYO Rooms presently operates in over 165 Indian cities through more than 4,500 hotels offerings 45,000 rooms. Having established its market leadership in India, OYO Rooms has also recently launched operations in Malaysia. Speaking on the occasion, Abhinav Sinha, COO, OYO Rooms, said, “OYO rooms was conceived with a vision to change the way travellers view out-of-home stay. We pioneered the transformation of unbranded hotels to offer a predictable, standardized and affordable experience to our customers. This latest milestone of crossing one million check-ins is yet another validation of the enthusiasm with which customers have responded to our offering.”