Tag Archives: OYO

OYO has formed a strategic partnership with Motherland Joint Ventures, the group that has helped build India’s global brands, including Incredible India, Royal Enfield, Make in India and IndiGo. This partnership will enable OYO and Motherland to co-develop a series of exciting new hotel formats and enhance various aspects of customer experience – including key touch points such as Interiors and ergonomics – all of which will offer guests an unprecedented combination of style, efficiency and affordability. This category transformation process began in 2017 with the launch of OYO Townhouse, the ‘friendly neighbourhood  hotel’ that is receiving rave reviews as it rapidly expands across the country. This alliance will facilitate and strengthen OYO’s mission of creating beautiful living spaces via its innovative approach to brand strategy, product definition and customer experience design. As part of this strategic partnership, OYO and Motherland will be launching a massive new retail collaboration that will feature a mix of original products specially designed for new age brands such as OYO Townhouse. Initially available exclusively at OYO Townhouses, Motherland products will soon be available at other OYO spaces, including online channels. Commenting on the partnership, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, OYO said, “In our pursuit of creating beautiful living spaces, the partnership with Motherland will enable us to co-develop new, exciting hotel formats and enhance guest experiences – including Interiors and ergonomics – offering guests an unprecedented mix of style, efficiency and affordability. We are confident the Motherland alliance will augment OYO’s overall value propositions through their skills in brand strategy, marketing and designing.”  

A group of independent hotel owners who have their properties listed on MakeMyTrip met with executives of the Nasdaq-listed company last month, raising concerns about its commercial agreement with hospitality company OYO. Tens of hoteliers, who are also members of Delhi Hotels and Restaurants Owners Association, met MakeMyTrip (MMT) officials individually and sought assurances that its arrangement with SoftBank-backed OYO would not affect bookings and revenues independent hotels earned from the MMT and Goibibo platforms. They have given us verbal assurances that there will be no disruptions and OYO will not favoured over independent hotels,” said Sandeep Khandelwal, president of the association that claims to represent about 400-500 small and mid-sized budget hotel establishments. “MakeMyTrip has over 40,000 hotels listed on its platform, a significant portion of which are small independent establishments. The arrangement with OYO should not affect us,” said Khandelwal who owns Hotel Shri Nanak Continental in Delhi. A second independent hotel owner who has met with MMT executives said that since the announcement of the MakeMyTrip and OYO agreement, ratings and reviews of the latter’s properties had improved substantially on the online travel platform. A MakeMyTrip spokesperson, however, said the company had not negotiated with any association, but has been in touch with its partner hotels as part of its regular business outreach.  “As part of our regular business, we have frequent direct meetings with our hotel partners. We have had no meeting with any such association, nor have we been approached by one,” the spokesperson said. Source: ET Online

OYO is betting big on the Indian hotel market by partnering with hotels and real estate assets with large inventory portfolio consisting of 100+ rooms under its franchisee and management contracts. In the coming years, it aspires to have 10,000+ rooms as a part of its large-asset category. Currently, OYO has already partnered with 12 such hotels and is managing them across markets including Delhi, Goa, Bengaluru, Tirupati, Hyderabad, Noida, Vrindavan and Patna. Commenting on the milestone, Maninder Gulati, Chief Strategy Officer, OYO said, “This excitement we are witnessing in the large 100+ rooms property space post establishing our market leadership with 75,000 keys in boutique and small assets is a testament of the strong and trusted brand we have created with our asset partners and customers. We are thankful to them for their continued support. At OYO, our mission is to add value to every form of real estate and being a full-stack hospitality company, we’ve built capabilities of on-boarding hotel rooms, locked homes, serviced apartments and at the same time managing large-format hotels.” “In the past year, we’ve on-boarded over 10+ such hotels with inventory ranging from 100-200 rooms and another 10+ hotels having over 80 rooms. With similar additions in the coming months, we’ll continue to expand our large hotel portfolio and dominance over India’s hotel market while ensuring high yield for our partners. We are upbeat about our India story and plan to go deeper into our existing markets while adding 50+ cities to the network  and capturing a 5% share of India’s hotel market by 2018-end,” Gulati said.

Having inked its first business acquisition, OYO has entered into an agreement with Chennai-based service apartment company, Novascotia Boutique Homes. The acquisition will add to the company’s existing portfolio and reiterate its focus on corporate service. Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, OYO said, “The acquisition forms an integral part of our inorganic growth plan, in line with our ambition to create quality living spaces and add value to every form of real estate. OYO is poised to deliver 180,000 keys by the end of 2018 and with Novascotia’s strength, we will be adding service apartments to our existing portfolio.” With this acquisition, OYO will bring its distribution, operational, transformational and technological capabilities on board for offering corporate travellers accommodation options. The acquisition will boost OYO’s portfolio by 350 rooms across locations where Novascotia has its footprints. Novascotia has built a portfolio in locations including Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kochi and Trivandrum. OYO plans to expand these offerings to 12 cities by the end of 2018. These serviced apartments are located in the heart of business hubs equipped with spacious rooms, upscale interiors, meals, gym and dining area to cater all the requirements of business travellers.  

OYO has announced OYO Home, a Home Management service that utilises the company’s existing on-ground operations, hospitality technology, housekeeping skills, revenue management algorithms and distribution prowess to deliver a hassle-free solution to second home-owners. Piloted in December 2016, the service intends to focus on locked and unused homes across top holiday destinations in the country. It is already managing over 300 private homes including villas, apartments, bungalows and farmhouses in five cities. Kavikrut, Chief Growth Officer, OYO, said “At OYO, we are focused on solving the problem of lack of quality and supply-demand imbalance in the hospitality sector. India’s top holiday destinations have a sizeable number of homes that are locked and unutilised. Homeowners are unable to put these assets to personal or commercial use due to lack of time and-or expertise in homestay-management. We saw this as an untapped opportunity where our business has existing synergies – we have people resources all across India, our hospitality-operations and distribution technology is best in the category, travellers trust our brand and we are already known for pioneering effective solutions tailored to local-market needs.”

Yatra Online has signed a partnership with OYO which will bring the latter’s inventory on to an online travel agent platform for the first time. With this association, Yatra’s total hotel inventory will further expand to over 70,000 hotels in India, especially in the budget hotel category. Travellers can book OYO hotels on Yatra’s platform, make changes to their reservations and reach out to Yatra’s customer service if required. Dhruv Shringi, Co-founder & CEO, Yatra.com, said, “Yatra continues to expand its reach in tier II and III markets in India. Our partnership with OYO is a firm step in that direction and enables us to deliver a unique proposition to our customers allowing them to choose from an unmatched variety of travel and accommodation options in India.” Ritesh Agarwal – Founder & CEO, OYO said, “Through this partnership, OYO’s quality-assured hassle-free offerings will be accessible to millions of discerning travellers who book on Yatra.com. We welcome them to avail our economy and mid-market offerings that deliver the right balance of price, location and quality. Our mission is to bring high-quality living spaces to all Indians and this alliance will help us penetrate deeper into emerging travel markets.”

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.”

OYO has launched OYO Townhouse in Hyderabad. This is the first launch of OYO Townhouse – a brand-new category of “friendly neighbourhood hotel” – outside Delhi-NCR. This will be the 5th hotel in the Townhouse portfolio since it was launched in January this year. After Jubilee Hills, the company plans to introduce OYO Townhouse hotels at other popular locations in the city such as Banjara Hills, Hitech City, Gachibowli and Panjagutta. The rooms will be priced at INR 2,500 and upwards. Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO – OYO, said “This is our first Townhouse offering outside Delhi NCR and we are excited to choose Hyderabad for our debut outside home turf. Hyderabad has transformed into a cosmopolitan city representing a millennial outlook towards experiences and expectations. OYO Townhouse’s efficient hospitality and multi-utility concept fits perfectly into this millennial lifestyle. It delivers a seamless experience through a format that operates as 25% hotel, 25% home, 25% cafe and 25% merchandise store in one place, providing a perfect complement to our guests’ lifestyle. OYO Townhouse represents our ongoing commitment to innovate and create world-class hotel experiences from India.” Elaborating on the philosophy behind Townhouse, Ritesh added, “Townhouse will deliver an all-encompassing experience to guests. We are excited to showcase and deliver this proposition in Hyderabad today. We are confident that our guests will love the experience of these tastefully done hotels staffed with Managers trained to deliver authentic and unique Townhouse service.” The hospitality industry in India suffers from a major disconnect between demand and supply of quality living space, forcing travellers and city-dwellers to compromise on decision variables of location, comfort and pricing. OYO Townhouse addresses this gap by creating a …

OYO has come up with another offering and has launched OYO Townhouse, positioned as a friendly neighbourhood hotel. The new category will operate under the OYO Townhouse brand and aims for a footprint of 250 properties with 10,000+ rooms across 12 cities in India by end of 2017. OYO Townhouse offers a combination of a hotel, home, merchandise store and lounge and is targeted at Millennials, for whom price, convenience and a differentiated experience play an important role in determining choices. Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, OYO, said, “OYO Townhouse represents our ongoing commitment to continue innovating and creating world-class hotel experiences from India. Townhouse will operate as a hotel, community hotspot, cafe and merchandise store – to deliver an all-encompassing experience to guests. This launch marks a milestone in our journey towards the next level of Hospitality, consolidating our position as a category innovator and leader.”

OYO has launched early check-in up to 7 days prior to booking. This facility is being offered free of cost in many OYOs, and at a nominal charge in others. With this launch, OYO claims to be the first hotel brand in the world to offer guaranteed early check-in to guests. OYO’s Sunrise check-in is now live both on its website and mobile App. Customers can easily identify, select and book hotels that offer confirmed early check-in. In addition, guests can also modify their existing booking and secure an early check-in. Speaking on launch, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, OYO, said, “Despite changes in the way we live, travel and work, the hotel industry across the world continues to follow the outdated concept of a standard check-in time. Nowadays, travel is no longer about following prescribed itineraries. At OYO we understand our guests and build features tailored to their needs. With Sunrise check-in travellers can plan their mode of travel, duration and trip-itinerary in a better way, without being constrained by the check-in time.”