It was reported previously that MakeMyTrip is keeping an eye out on smaller companies to further strengthen its position in the hotel space. The merger with GoIbibo brought two rivals with different strengths together and as the integration of the two approaches completion, they are out again looking at ways to grab a bigger piece of the online travel space in India.

It is now reported that MakeMyTrip is looking at investing in the budget hotel aggregation space and is considering FabHotels for the same. The segment gained popularity in the year 2015 after OYO Rooms raised a large round from Softbank. This was followed by a large number of same or similar models evolving not only in India but in Southeast countries with similar accommodation challenges as well. While the promise was convincing, and at one point it appeared that they will create threat for the budget hotel listings on OTAs, the aggressive race for scale didn’t help. The major OTAs hit back at OYO and Zo by removing their listings citing overlapping listings as a reason.

TOI reports that MakeMyTrip was involved in conversations with FabHotels and Treebo Hotels and may be finalising an investment in FabHotels. Founded in 2014, FabHotels operates in the same space as Oyo Rooms and lists 19 cities on its website. MakeMyTrip has its own series of quality budget listings called Value+ GoIbibo introduced GoStays. It will be interesting to see how the association with FabHotels is leveraged if it indeed goes through while not causing any damage to the current listings.

Treebo recently stopped listing on the two OTAs claiming that they were charging much higher commissions compared to their international counterparts and that wasn’t sustainable for Treebo. It is possible that together they could look at the option of listing FabHotels partner properties exclusively on the two OTAs. The domestic OTAs are also under pressure from international OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia.

MakeMyTrip is also pushing into the alternative accommodation space with RightStay. Along with this, it also has investments in metasearch and review platform HolidayIQ and holiday package marketplace GoFro.

The post MakeMyTrip reportedly weighing investment in FabHotels appeared first on TravHQ.

From young startups to the online travel giants, a lot of promises have been made in the hospitality industry. We often talk about how the shift towards online will redefine the hospitality industry and many startups have showcased the same globally. However, the challenges still continue to exist at the bottom of the chain, especially on our side of the globe.

The team at Caption Hospitality started off trying to build an OTA for South East Asia region with a focus on the boutique hotel category. The initial business development was focussed on Singapore but when they started testing the model in some developing countries like Indonesia and Thailand, they realised that the problem is much bigger than what they were trying to address. They took a brief pivot towards a meta search model focusing on Thailand but couldn’t take it very far back then.

By that time, the likes of OYO Rooms, ZO Rooms and many more were starting to pop up all over and the problem they were promising to address was visible in many other developing countries. The team had learned from the past experiences that they shouldn’t be tempted by a hyped idea so they considered validating the same and decided to address the problem from its root.

Key challenges

The biggest problem was that a huge fraction of the individual properties were still operating on manual processes. Hoteliers were manually updating inventories through OTA extranets and some were even managing check-ins on pen and paper. There are plenty of solutions available for hotels so that they can change it but things were quite different in the real world, especially with the lower end of the spectrum.

The team

(L to R) Larry Chua and Budi Santoso

The duo behind Caption Hospitality, Larry Chua and Budi Santoso spent time in identifying the key problems to create a product that eliminates the ground level problems. Larry has been in the travel industry for over a decade carrying experience of working with notable startups like Ensogo, Livingsocial and Deal.com.sg. He is also a motorsport enthusiast and has competed in F1 H2O Nations Cup Powerboat race in 2011 representing Singapore. Budi has been one of the top engineers graduating from the acclaimed Nanyang Technological University and has spent close to seven years with Marvell before stepping into travel space.

Solution?

After spending close to four months surveying various hotel properties and interviewing hoteliers, they identified various hurdles. The existing solutions for budget hotel properties were too expensive for most hoteliers. On top of that, these solutions were designed considering ideal connectivity situations which wasn’t the case everywhere in developing markets. To further add to the woes, most of them required a certain level of technical expertise which meant that the lower tier hotel staff wasn’t able to operate them. Adding to all this was the fact that the hoteliers were lacking the skills required to compete or even be visible in the highly competitive online travel space.

The solution? CRONO. It is an end-to-end solution for hotels that don’t require complicated modules such as managing F&B, Spas etc. In simple words, a solution to allow budget hotels to easily manage the inventory and focus on other important aspects of running a hotel business. This is more relevant now than ever before because the modern traveller doesn’t want to spend any time at the front desk. The friction at front desk puts off the customer.

The founders have extensively researched the market looping in the feedback of potential customers and specifically addressing their pain points. That is why, apart from offering solutions for streamlining operations, they also help them boost their online presence and make the most of it.

Commenting on their vision, Larry shared, “While Oracle has dominated the market of the top tier travel accommodations, we aim to be the default operating system for the lower tier travel accommodations, enabling and empowering them to be ready for the modern travellers.”

Multiple properties in Tier 2 cities are using and testing CRONO in Indonesia. The team is also in the process of signing five year management contract with some other properties in Indonesia. Recently they also announced a partnership with eRevMax, leading hotel distribution technology provider, to offer automated channel management and reservation delivery to the hotel partners.

With CRONO, Caption Hospitality is looking to get rid of inefficiencies in operations of budget hotels, which will allow them to serve their guests better, eventually giving long term gains. You can find more details at www.captionhospitality.com.

The post Travel Startup Spotlight: Caption Hospitality wants to help budget hotels turn millennial friendly appeared first on TravHQ.

Budget hotel aggregator OYO Rooms has reported a net loss of INR 351 crore (around USD 53 million) for the April-December period of FY16. According to a news report by Financial Express, the net loss for FY15 was INR 20.79 crore which say a rise of seventeen times. During the nine month period, the company reported a revenue of INR 13.93 crore. This went up from the INR 2.4 crore reported for FY15.

OYO Rooms has received multiple rounds of investments from various investors including SoftBank Group, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture partners. The budget hotel aggregator raised INR 413 crore (around USD 62 million) recently however no existing investors except SoftBank participated.

While in FY16 OYO spent heavily in expanding the network, it also faced competition from many other players that emerged in the Indian market in the same period. To shrug off some of the rivals and to attract hotel partners, the budget hotel aggregators were investing heavily on making it lucrative for hotels to work with them. The segment also saw interest from major OTAs including MakeMyTrip and Yatra bringing in their own budget hotel brands.

At this point, OYO Rooms has presence across 200 cities with around 6500 properties. The brand is also looking at alternative accommodation, a segment which is the focus area of Stayzilla in India. Stayzilla has also raised capital earlier this year to further push the alternative accommodation segment in India.

Source: The Financial Express

The post OYO reportedly made a loss of INR 351 crore during April-Dec in FY16 appeared first on TravHQ.

Budget hotel aggregator OYO Rooms has added new geographies and expanded its presence in North-East. They are now offering OYO Rooms across popular tourist destinations in the region like Darjeeling and Gangtok. Similar to other regions, they are offering rooms across different budget categories in the North-East as well.

While the region attracts tourists from all over, the infrastructure is not as developed as other parts of the country and this move by OYO would certainly help tourists in the region.

Commenting on this new development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, OYO Rooms 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 standardisation 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.”

He also shared that the highest number of queries for the region are received from Kolkata accounting for almost 40 percent of the total for the region.

This news comes only two weeks after OYO Rooms team claimed to have reached a unit level profitability. The average booking cost of rooms vary from INR 1400 to INR 1800. With the announcement, they also shared their plans to expand the inventory and the recent expansion is one step in the same direction. Last year the budget hotel chain also started operations outside India as well. Expect them to continue adding new geographies in the coming months.

Source: Economic Times

The post OYO Rooms expands to North-East region of India appeared first on TravHQ.

Last year we heard and read a lot about budget hotel aggregators and how they are stirring up India’s travel industry. Following OYO Rooms, many startups with similar asset light models emerged from different parts of India all claiming to offer quality experience at a small price. Soon the same was seen in other Asian countries where travellers face similar challenges as India. While the claims are bold and the list of amenities promising, do they really delivery on the promises? One of our readers recently travelled to Indonesia and decided to try out two of the budget hotel aggregators for his stay. He shared his experience with us to give an ordinary traveller’s perspective of the budget hotel scene in Indonesia rather than one tailored for PR and here is what he has to say.

My first experience with such hotels started as I was planning my trip down to Indonesia. There was so much hype about Zenrooms, Reddoorz, Nidarooms, Airyrooms.

Booking process was a breeze, like any other hotel’s website. I had book Zenrooms Thamrin Kebon Sirih for the first night. Booking confirmation was forwarded to my email address with

1) Hotel name as Zenrooms Thamrin Kebon Sirih

2) Address location – Thamrin kebon sirih I 3, Jakarta

Landed in Jakarta Airport on Sunday morning (just to avoid the notorious jam), boarded the taxi with the address. When we got on the street of Taman Kebon Sirih. We were lost. We were trying to locate Zenrooms signage to my hotel. As the street was planned in a way of even numbers on one side and odd on the other, both the driver and I had to focus on one side of the street trying to locate the hotel.

At one point, we had to stop at the side of the road trying to ask security guards of offices for directions, to no avail. Nobody knows where the hotel is located. As I am not local and without any data roaming, I could not rely on GPS to get the exact location of the hotel.

Finally with some help of directions from the locals where the address might be, we arrived at a hotel place named: Take’s Mansion. Not being sure is this the right place / location, I had to hold the taxi outside and rush into the hotel counter to verify.

At the counter, I was looking for branding / signage of Zenrooms but to no avail. I was greeted by the hotel staff. I asked: ”sorry is this ZenRooms Thamrin kebon sirih?” she responded looking clueless and replied, “This is Take’s mansion. “  I then asked: “Is this address correct?” she responded: “Yes, sorry sir did you book from a travel agent and can I have your name please?”. I responded “Maybe, my name is XXXX,” “Oh sir, you have booked from Zenrooms, they are our travel agent. Did they not tell you our hotel’s name and location?” “No, and I have spent 45 mins in the taxi on this street trying to locate your hotel and my taxi driver is still waiting outside, hang on a moment and I will be right back”

Fast forward to the room, the rooms looks okay but very different from the photos. “Well we all know the magic of Photoshop which is not surprising.” Quickly inspected the room and asked. “Zenrooms promised this showing the photo.” The photo shows a nice ZenRooms pillow and their amenities.

The hotel staff only replied: “They came here took photo with the pillow and took it back and for the amenities, our hotel do provide.” Knowing that the hotel staff is clueless what is happening.

Decided to let this matter to rest, however after 15mins being in the room, I begin to smell a “funny” smell. The sewage / old drain kind of smell beginning to fill the room. This is when I tried to find the source. First suspect is the WC in the toilet. Nothing is in there all is fine. After walking around the whole room, I realized that the smell is coming from the sink beside the refrigerator. I tried to get rid of the smell by letting the water run but to no avail.

Started to call up the front desk to request for a change of room. Their reply is “They have to check first”, immediately I asked what you mean by you have to check first, this is your hotel. They started replying that: “Oh Zenrooms only have few specific rooms in our hotel to offer, for you to request change of room, I need to ask for their approval.” In my mind I was thinking what is this and how long is this going to take and today is a Sunday.”

I totally gave up and told the reception to forget about it as I am going to be here just for 1 night.  Eventually, I went out to get a body deodorant and blasted the room with it.

I guess what you call: “You pay peanuts, you get monkeys theory. When things are too good to be true, likelihood of it being a gimmick is high.”

There were still question marks in my head, how these guys operate and work.

1) If they are a travel agent (which hotels regard them as) why do they try to promote and sell the hotel as their own? And with gimmick?

2) If they are a travel agent, why are they allowed to be promoted in booking.com and Agoda under their own hotel name misleading consumers and guest? (Take’s mansion are also listed in these online travel agent)

3) Why would hotel owners do it as they are fighting and competing on online travel agent’s site against the hotel themselves?

Part 2 – Reddoorz

After a full day of meetings and around 9pm, my local friend decided to give me a lift to my hotel. This time was Reddoorz @Kelapa Dua Kebon Jaruk, got smart this time round, rather than trying to locate and search for the hotel itself we decided to call their customer service for directions.

Manage to get through to their customer service hotline easily. When the line pick up, the person spoke with a strong Singaporean English accent asking how can they be of assistance.  I replied asking for directions to the hotel we booked. After putting me on short hold, the customer service person asked for our contact number and mentioned someone will get back to us. There is no other option than roaming around trying to locate the hotel. We had to stop the car by the side of the road and wait for the return call.

After waiting about 10mins, someone returned the call, addressing himself as the General Manager of Rizen Hotel. We verified that it is from Reddoorz and he confirmed.

When we got to the hotel, as expected, there were no sign of branding.

Check in process was swift and I was showed to the room.

The room looked decent and close to the photos and there were amenities provided.

Had a good shower and was prepared to do some work.

Called the front desk for the Wi-Fi password. After many attempts of trying to login, their Wi-Fi does not work. Returned a call to the front desk to verify what is happening, their reply is: “Our Wi-Fi had been like that all along. If you want a stronger signal you have to come to the lobby.”

Thought this hotel was much better than previous ZenRooms experience, this was the first disappointment.  When I turned on the T.V looking for some entertainment. The cable does not work. Even after multiple times of sending the hotel engineers into my room, they fail to rectify the problem. I gave up eventually and turned to reading my book.

30 mins gone by, the room temperature does not seem right. I checked the controller on of the air-con which displays 16 degrees. However, it did not seem to be 16 degrees. It was hot. The air-con is working, there is the sound of the fan within but it is not cooling.

By this time, the hotel staff is probably annoyed by my request; I summoned them to my room to check on the air con. They came meddled with the controls a little and just brush off the issue by saying the air-con is working and there is no problem.

It was getting late and feeling too tired to do anything more but to live with it. I slept the whole night at “16 degrees” without even the use of my blanket.

Final thoughts:

I will never ever use any of such service in the future ever. I should have thought so that some things are just too good to be true. It is sad to say that more and more of such business are popping everywhere in Asia.

Are they really adding value to customers and the travel industry or just a gimmick / scam shop?

Probably there will be some customers that can deal with all the flaws of “their hotels” (technically not, just rebranded to look like theirs).

Morally, I feel that it is not right to oversell and mislead your customers on the photos and other “standard promises”

– Amenities (technically yes. But not what you see in the hotel)

– Wi-Fi (technically yes. But they did not promise it is working)

So when there are issues, who do you go and sort it out with? These companies themselves because they are (Travel agents / they run and operate those rooms) or the hotel themselves?

So if in the end, I have to deal with all this issues, why can’t I book the hotel directly?

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect views of TravHQ.

The post Why will I not trust any of the “Budget Hotel Aggregators” and book direct? appeared first on TravHQ.

Budget hotel aggregator Vista Rooms has built a strong presence in the Indian market in a very short duration. Starting with a handful of properties less than a year ago, now they have got north of 800 properties across 80 cities in India. Unlike other budget hotel aggregators in India, they have primarily focused on Tier 2 and Tier 3 as the accommodation problem is more serious in those cities. Now the start-up is crossing international borders and setting foot in the Sri Lankan market.

With the plan to build the largest branded accommodation in Sri Lanka, they announced the launch yesterday with 200+ properties spread across more than 25 cities. Adhering to the ‘luxury at low budget’ model, the hotel properties in Sri Lanka will also offer similar amenities like complimentary breakfast, free Wi-Fi and concierge services. The properties in Sri Lanka include boutique hotels, guesthouses, service apartments, villas and homestays.

Commenting on the development, Amit Damani, Co-Founder & Head of Growth at Vista Rooms said that “We are happy that Sri Lanka has warmly received Vista Rooms and the response we have received from hotel owners and customers has been very positive. Our expansion plans have been driven by our customer needs who have reached out to us expressing interest in certain international destinations. The past long weekend itself we received over 25 bookings through an emailer we sent to a select group of prior customers.”

Sri Lanka being similar to India in a number of ways was a logical first choice for the brand and they plan to expand to 5 more countries by the end of this year. They haven’t revealed any specific plans yet but expect them to look at the South-East Asia next. It is worth a mention that earlier this year OYO Rooms, the largest player in budget hotel space, announced its entry into Malaysia and might consider expanding into more markets in future.

Ankita Sheth, Co –Founder and Head of Alliances & Partnerships said “We are working with our hand-picked hotels to change the perception of budget hotels. We want travelers, coming to Sri Lanka, from all across the world to no longer worry whether their bathroom will be hygienic or whether the AC will be working when they stay at a budget hotel.”

While Indian budget hotel aggregators are looking at the possibilities outside India, similar brands from South-East Asian countries are considering an entry into the highly competitive Indian market. It will be interesting to see how things turn out as more players with strong presence in their domestic markets step into other markets to grow.

The Vista Rooms properties in Sri Lanka can be viewed on www.vistarooms.lk

The post Vista Rooms steps into Sri Lanka with 200+ properties appeared first on TravHQ.

Travel brands are welcoming Valentine’s day with new offers, deals and interesting campaigns. The budget hotel aggregator OYO Rooms joined the celebrations by associating social messages with their campaign. The campaign titled ‘No Room for Hate’ started off with a series of memes which were reminiscent of the ‘Be like Bill’ memes that were all over the internet very recently and then went on to pick social topics that are often the hot issues in India, from religion to food and a lot in between.

Valentine’s Day creates a lot of buzz, even more so in India. The campaign created by Thinkstr for OYO Rooms is an attempt to ride on the topical issues and connect with the young people that the brand strongly focuses on. Starting with the ‘Be Like Bill’ approach, they moved to photographs of people next and then adopted a series of graphics to carry a similar message. These social media graphics and photographs were also accompanied by a video of the campaign.

It appears that the strategy has worked well and they have managed to spark a good number of conversations over social media. The hashtag #NoRoomForHate had reached more than 252K accounts over the past 24 hours (Source: TweetReach) with new tweets constantly pouring in.

Along with the campaign over social media platforms, OYO Rooms is also giving Valentine’s Day gifts to the guests staying at OYO Rooms properties which is further adding to the conversations on social media.

What other Valentine’s Day campaigns by travel brands caught your attention? Do share with us.

The post This Valentine’s Day, OYO Rooms sends a social message with #NoRoomForHate appeared first on TravHQ.

Staying at hotels bring out the silly side of many of us. From jumping on the beds to dancing around in towels, people do wacky things and OYO Rooms is inviting people to share them in their latest campaign.

In their campaign #OneForEveryone, they are asking people to share their quirky hotel room habits using a picture or video. The campaign comes in time to target the year end holidayers and promote the brand among them. The contest started today and will continue till December 22 on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To take part in the contest, the users can go to social media accounts of OYO Rooms and share their entries. The entries can be photos or videos and the most interesting entries will get the prizes. Getting more shares and likes on the post will further boost the chances of winning the contest. The contest is open from December 17, 2015 to December 22, 2015. People can send in multiple entries to increase their chances of winning.

Speaking about the campaign, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, OYO Rooms said, “We are thrilled to launch our latest ad campaign, “OneForEveryone”, which is actually a series of short films showcasing how different people behave once they check-in at a hotel. These colloquial commercials underscore how OYO Rooms understands and caters to the wide spectrum of expectations Indian travellers have from their hotel-experience. We are confident that this campaign will trigger greater brand recall and preference for OYO Rooms when travellers start planning a holiday.”

The campaign has been conceptualised in-house by OYO’s creative team led by Bhaskar Thakur, Head, Brand Strategy. The launch of this campaign is accompanied by 8 short ad clips that set an example for the kind of entries they are expecting while adding some humour to the equation.

The external partners that worked with OYO Rooms for the campaign include The DZU Film Company, Director Daniel Upputuru and AD Tanya Katya.

OYO has been actively trying to lure young travellers through various social media campaigns and the #OneForEveryone campaign will be another step in the same direction. The social media contest will boost their visibility and with New Year approaching, they will be able to offer the OYO experience to more travellers.

Sharing more on the audience and media-mix, Kavikrut, Chief Growth Officer, OYO Rooms said, “We are targeting young, upwardly, mobile urban consumers. Along with TV, we have launched a high-impact online campaign #oneforeveryone encouraging consumers to share their quirky hotel moments. Digital and mobile media is a key focus since it will help us reach, engage and forge a relationship with our consumer. We also have OOH across 17 major cities.”

During the contest, they are offering 20 Xiaomi Mi4 mobile phones and 42 free couple stays in selected OYO Rooms properties across India. On Facebook and Twitter, they are putting up 3 phones and 7 room nights up for grabs every day and on Instagram, there are 2 devices to be won in the contest duration.

OYO Rooms is already the leader in this segment and this campaign will surely help them reach new audience, further expanding their digital footprint. If you are participating, quirky videos will surely fetch you more brownie points than pictures.

You can check out all the campaign videos here. Find more details about the campaign on their website. Expect them to roll out more such interesting campaigns in the coming months.

The post OYO Rooms wants to know your quirky hotel habits appeared first on TravHQ.

The budget hotel aggregator ZO Rooms has been going through a tough phase after failing to fetch another round of funding. News has been floating around that it will be acquired by OYO Rooms, the largest player in this segment but there has been no clear update from either companies on this.

While it is still unclear if the company will be acquired by the rival OYO Rooms, we have learned in another update that ZO Rooms has gradually started laying off employees. The budget hotel brand has already been losing partner hotel properties to its close rival and various property managers claimed that there has been a significant drop in number of room nights sold since OYO Rooms and ZO Rooms were unlisted from leading OTAs.

Many of their hotel partners have also started working with multiple hotel aggregators (including OYO Rooms, which wasn’t the case earlier) because ZO Rooms wasn’t able to bring much bookings. OYO Rooms, with its discounted prices and stronger reach has been offering them better proposition. This is also indicated by the fact that most such properties are marked as ‘sold out’ for most times on the ZO Rooms website. Even though it has been reported widely, we think there might be slim chances of an acquisition by OYO as a large number of hotel partners will be eager to work with OYO after declining sales with ZO Rooms and being new, they don’t have anything like a strong base of loyal customers.

The budget hotel space has seen lot of action recently with the entry of many new players like Wudstay, Vista Rooms, Treebo Hotels and others. Gauging the opportunities in this space, major OTAs like Goibibo and Yatra.com also introduced their budget hotel brands and intensified the competition. But the prime competition for ZO Rooms has been Softbank backed OYO Rooms which has been leading the segment. (Read: Will budget hotel startups eat the OTA pie?)

One of the factors that have driven ZO Rooms to this stage is the change in approach by Tiger Global. Last month it was reported by The Economic Times that Tiger Global Management has decided to tone down its aggressive approach in terms of investments and not support companies which have high burn rate. Earlier they created a mania among internet companies by pouring in huge amounts but all that is going to change now. This came only a few months after a very active Q1’15 in which Tiger Global invested in 8 new companies. This could be because many deep pocketed investors have entered the Indian market and made the discount war a race to the bottom. It will be interesting to see how Tiger Global deploys its funds in the region going forward.

Just like most players in this segment, ZO Rooms was heavily incentivising the customers to book with them by bearing losses and offering room nights at much discounted prices. Not only that but according to some property managers, they were heavily dependent on offering minimum room night guarantee in form of inventory buyout for months which further added to the high operating costs.

Some of the employees have told that the workforce is being reduced from almost all the teams, though, instead of terminating the services, the management is suggesting the employees to resign as the company is short on funds and won’t be able to pay them. The founders are individually reaching out to the employees being removed from the team. It is worth a mention that they are also offering to help the employees land another job by reaching out to their network.

It is yet to be seen what turn this episode takes. We will update you as we learn of any other development. Do you think we will see more heavily funded travel startups go down the spiral?

Update (Dec 17, 2015): According to a news report by Economic Times, OYO Rooms has agreed to acquire ZO Rooms in an all stock deal. The founders and investors will get 7 percent stakes in OYO Rooms once the deal is through.

The post ZO Rooms laying off employees. What’s next for them? appeared first on TravHQ.

The budget hotel segment has been in the news for most part of 2015 but as the year comes to an end, we might just get to hear the biggest of all stories. In what could be a game-changing move for the budget hotel industry in India, news reports indicate that leading hotel aggregator Oyo rooms is in early talks to snap up its rival Zo Rooms.

Economic Times quotes, “Investors and management from both sides have met“. “The deal has not reached a term-sheet stage as negotiations are still early, but (investors and management) have agreed to take the discussions forward“.

Earlier in August, Oyo Rooms, had raised fresh round of investment at $100 million (Rs. 630 crore) from Japan’s SoftBank. On the other hand, the ride hasn’t been so smooth for Zo Rooms as its investment firm, Tiger Global is looking to slow down and take a backseat with startup-deals. Zo Rooms had raised $30 million (Rs 192 crore) from Tiger Global Management and Orios Venture Partners in August 2015 as well.

This move could have been triggered after the recent foray of leading OTAs MakeMyTrip, Yatra etc. into the budget hotel category. The potential merger of the two could spark a major war in the budget hotel category as earlier both Oyo & Zo Rooms were blocked by these online travel agencies. The higher valuation of the joint entity could follow a trend that started with Flipkart’s acquisition of fashion e-commerce portal Myntra.com and Ola’s acquisition of TaxiForSure in the cab-aggregator category.

Budget hotels have sparked a major evolution of India’s travel ecosystem with Treebo Hotels, Vista Rooms, Zip Rooms being some of the other travel startups in this category.

The post Breaking News: Oyo Rooms in early talks to buy Zo Rooms appeared first on TravHQ.