So the latest commercials of OYO Hotels & Rooms dropped earlier this week! The ads which are supposed to run across TV & Digital mediums are part of 3 video series under the ‘Raho Mast brand campaign’.

The first ad, takes a dig at touts who make false promises to tourists and lure them to book dingy and unclean rooms.

The commercial which is primarily addressing the mid-travel segment target group has a humorous tone to it. At the time of publishing the story, the YT ad has garnered 1.1M+ views, even though engagement on the video is abysmal at under 0.01% of the viewers engaging with the video at 100+ likes and 5 odd comments. In an era, where views can be purchased, you can take a call on what’s real and what’s not

The second commercial highlights the problems faced by the millennial couple who want to have simple fun while watching movie together on a smartphone. Being in a public place, they face problems of all kinds and then spot an OYO near them. The commercial which features Influencer/Actor Rytasha would remind you of Vodafone‘s ads in the earlier days with similar music theme and treatment.

Both the ads take a cue from the common problems faced across age-groups and are targeted at different themes – When you’re on the look-out for a budget-friendly hotel in a new city and when you feel you need a hotel because you want to maintain privacy.

From a P&L purview, Oyo Hotels & Homes net loss has increased in the last fiscal year up to 2,384.69 INR crore (amounting to 6.5 Crore/Day) but at the same time it’s valuation has more than doubled in 2019.

What do you think about the #RahoMast series?

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The normal industry standard for check-in is no earlier than 2-3 pm and check out no later than 11-12 noon. This gets on the nerves of the travellers who travel early in the morning especially after a tiring journey.

This long-established practice has been questioned by OYO, a Mumbai-based hotel aggregator that has introduced an early check-in feature w.e.f September 24,2016 where 2,000 out of 6,500 properties got them running on the site.

The move is made to ensure that the user is allowed to check into hotel rooms as early as 6 am. The feature will roll complimentary in about 500 properties wherein the rest the charges may vary from Rs 50 to Rs 300, depending upon the locales.

“We received feedback from almost 50,000 users that the check-in time was an issue. Inter-city travellers typically arrive early in the morning or late-evening, and then they have to request the hotel staff to make the check-in flexible,” Oyo founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal said in a statement.

He said a similar feature for check-outs will be introduced soon.

“We will take the 30% non-occupancy and enable it for consumers. There are properties, like in Shimla, that run at higher occupancies. In such cases, if consumers ask for a 6 am check-in, then the hotels might need to block the room a day in advance. So the price could be higher,” he said.

Chintan Patel, partner advisory for real estate and hospitality at Ernst and Young adds,”Usually, hotels utilise the time after a check-out to prepare the room before the next check-in. That is why hotels usually have a fixed check-in time. But, hotels generally do not refuse a room if available at any time.” He added that the flexibility is one issue in the hospitality space that could be challenging for hotels whose inventory is usually full.

Agarwal believes that the properties who participate in the scheme will be monetarily incentivized.

Source: Economic Times

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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

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OYO Rooms, the budget hotel aggregator, has forged partnership with Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board (UTDB) in order to develop a network of better stay options for visitors coming to the region. The brand has signed MoU with the state to develop hospitality ecosystem in the state according to a statement by OYO Rooms.

According to OYO Rooms, the company currently runs 15 homestays in the region and they are registered with the state government. They are looking at a number of 50 homestays by the end of this year. Similar to hotel properties, OYO is standardising the homestays and equipping them with standard OYO amenities the hotel aggregator claims to offer at the hotel properties.

OYO says that the brand is already working with other state governments as well, including Maharashtra and Telangana to develop a tourism ecosystem.

Commenting on the development, Shailesh Bagauli, CEO, Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board said, “We are confident that OYO’s expertise in standardising and marketing large inventories to customers in different parts of India will drive immense value to this partnership. We look forward to our joint efforts contributing to increased tourist influx and a better stay experience for visitors to Uttarakhand.”

After budget hotels, homestays are gaining lot of interest from startups and major travel brands alike. Airbnb is stirring things up on a global scale while in India, Stayzilla seems to be leading the trend of homestays. Major OTA Yatra.com introduced TG Stays under which they are offering alternative accommodation options. MakeMyTrip also expressed interest in the segment. Oravel Stays, the company that operates the brand OYO Rooms first started in the alternative accommodation segment but later went ahead in the budget hotel space. However, alternative stay isn’t a segment to be missed and that is why the brand is coming back to it. Indian market offers its unique share of challenges for these players as shared by Stayzilla founder Yogendra Vasupal. There is lot more groundwork required for the platform before people would start trusting and booking. It will be interesting how this segment pans out with the multiple players showing signs of movement.

Source: Business Standard

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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

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Ixigo, a travel company headquartered in Gurgaon – India, has recently announced the launch of ixibook. This platform will allow travellers to make bookings for flights and hotels within the mobile app without being redirected to a third-party website or app. To make this a reality, the company has collaborated with the leading brands like Cleartrip and OYO Rooms.

ixibook is already operational at this moment. It enables the users of the mobile application to book flights and tickets in just one click. The idea behind creating this platform was not only to enable direct in-app booking but also to save a traveller’s time by diminishing the conversation funnel. For the convenience of the travellers, ixibook stores the user’s information. This data will be protected with 256-bit security. All subsequent financial transactions can be done without inserting the same information time and again. Also, post-booking customer support will be handled directly by the respective partner.

Commenting on the launch, Aloke Bajpai, co-­founder & CEO of ixigo, said:

“This is a first of its kind innovation in the Indian travel market, and we have chosen to work with the industry’s best for our initial launch. 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% of our flight and hotel bookings to ixibook within the next few months, as well as add more partners to ixibook later this year.”

Sharing his perspective, Stuart Crighton, CEO of Cleartrip, quoted:

“We’re excited to partner with ixigo on this first-of-its-kind paradigm where an online travel agency and meta-search collaborate closely to create a better user experience, something that we both value immensely.”

Ritesh Agarwal, CEO of OYO Rooms, added:

“ixigo possesses deep insights into traveller-behaviour and a rich content focus. Through this collaboration, their audience will find value in our offerings and we will be able to expand our reach to engage leisure travel enthusiasts.”

By this development, ixigo is attempting to become a more vertically integrated player. With the launch of this product, it might be successful in increasing its customer base and obtaining higher profits.

Currently, ixibook is available via Google Play Store only.

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February was an exciting month for us. We came back after three exciting days at SATTE 2016 and soon after, we hosted the first Startup Knockdown successfully in association with OTM Mumbai and are now looking forward to the next one in Mumbai. This month also saw some major investments in travel space. Like always, we also learned about some really interesting travel startups and shared them with you. In case you missed, here are our top stories from this month:

#1- Fxkart and Tramily emerge as winners at first Travel Startup Knockdown

In the first Travel Startup Knockdown, Fxkart was selected to be the winner by our panel of judges. Fxkart simplifies the process of foreign exchange for international travellers by connecting them to reliable forex dealers. Tramily was picked as people’s choice at Startup Knockdown. It is a platform that connects travel agents to hoteliers easily through a website or mobile app.

Full story

#2- ibibo group to receive USD 240 million funding from Naspers

ibibo, the parent company of popular OTA Goibibo will be receiving a funding of USD 250 million from existing stakeholder Naspers. The group not only operates the popular OTA but also runs B2B travel platform TravelBoutiqueOnline, bus booking service Redbus and budget hotel chain Gostays. The latest funds will be used by the company to develop new technologies to enhance the products.

Full story

#3- Zendrive raises USD 13.5 million to make car travel safer

Zendrive offers analytics on the driving patterns to offer a quality score. It doesn’t require any hardware and relies on the sensors in mobile phone of the driver to generate the data. Zendrive is available through SDK and can be embedded with various apps. The technology holds huge potential and the participation of major automobile companies in this round is a strong indicator of the same.

Full story

#4- Shouut is the only app you will need for local discovery

In a time when we have a separate app for everything from discovering activities to booking hotels, Shouut comes in as one app that has it all. It seamlessly stiches together food & drink, nightlife shopping, leisure & outdoor and travel & stay giving the user an app that has it all. Giant Tech Labs, the company behind this interesting product has recently raised seed funding of USD 500K to further develop the product.

Full story

#5- Softbank confirms the acquisition of ZO Rooms by OYO Rooms

Softbank finally put the rumours of the acquisition of ZO Rooms by OYO Rooms by confirming the same. Tiger Global backed ZO Rooms was the strongest competitor to OYO Rooms but was facing challenges after failing to raise subsequent rounds from its investors. The deal went through with ZO Rooms founders and investors getting 7 percent stakes in OYO Rooms.

Full story

#6- Phocuswright MD, Tony D’Astolfo talks about their first event in India

Phocuswright is coming to India for the very first time with the theme “The Asian Mojo: Millennials, Mobile, Money, Mania”. We spoke with Tony D’Astolfo, MD, Phocuswright to learn more about the highly anticipated event and the driving factors behind it.

Full story

#7- Volvo plans to redefine car rental industry with its keyless technology

The Swedish car manufacturer Volvo has showcased a new keyless technology that eliminates the need of carrying any kind of car keys and allows unlocking the car using mobile phone. The digital keys can be shared with other users so that the cars can spend more time on the road than sitting in a parking lot. They will be launching a pilot project next year with their rental company Sunfleet.

Full story

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Roadhouse Hostels Pvt Ltd, a travel company that offers a chain of hostels targeted at backpackers, has successfully raised an undisclosed amount of investment from Indian Angel Network (IAN). Apart from establishing new premises, the company aims to use the fund to build its brand, expand the team and enhance technology.

Ambarish Raghuvanshi and Vikas Kuthiala of IAN have led this round of investment and will join the board of the company. Raghuvanshi is co-founder and former Chief Financial Officer of Info Edge (India) Ltd. whereas Kuthalia is managing director and founder of First India Assistance.

According to the article, Raghuvanshi stated:

“The backpacker space is seeing a lot of interest from founders and investors. However, the key will be to build an organisation model to replicate many such hostels and to deliver superior and consistent service.”

Roadhouse Hostel Pvt Ltd was founded by Uday Jhamb, Shubham Garg and Rajesh Borah in 2014. Currently, it has 80 beds in Goa and Jaipur. It plans to add as many as five such properties in Kerala and Himachal Pradesh by the end of this year. This company takes properties on a long-term lease and runs hostel services. It offers common rooms where guests can interact with each other and recreational areas with play stations and pool tables. It has installed cameras in all public areas within the hostel premises to ensure the safety of guests. Roadhouse Hostel Pvt Ltd claims to have 60% average occupancy per month.

Other companies in the travel industry are not lagging behind. Few of them have even received financial backing from prominent investors. As per the news report, Zostel – recently acquired by OYO Rooms – is the leader when it comes to backpacker hostels in India. OYO Rooms is the most funded startup. Furthermore, WudStay Travels Pvt Ltd has already raised $3 million in series-A funding from Mangrove Capital Partners and Nimbuzz CEO Vikas Saxena sometime back.

With this financial support, Roadhouse Hostel Pvt Ltd might significantly increase its customer base and intensely compete with bigger players in the Indian travel industry. However, how will it precisely perform in the coming time is yet to be seen. 

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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.

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The acquisition of ZO Rooms by rival OYO Rooms has been in news for a while. Earlier reports indicated that OYO Rooms was in process to acquire ZO Rooms in an all stock deal and that ZO Rooms has been laying off employees. Earlier today some speculations came out about the acquisition being completed after ZO Rooms website and app stopped working but were dismissed soon after the website went live again. Now there is a confirmation of the same from OYO Rooms investor Softbank.

The acquisition wasn’t surprising considering the fact that both the companies were spending the funds on expanding rapidly and OYO Rooms had a clear advantage. Zostel Hospitality was unable to raise subsequent rounds from other investors or their existing investors which eventually resulted in the acquisition. Softbank’s earning release indicates that OYO Rooms has grown 34 fold from the previous year.

This acquisition will clearly put OYO Rooms on the top in this space with a significant margin. This segment has not only seen new startups trying to aggregate the budget hotel properties but also the entry of major OTAs including MakeMyTrip, Goibibo and Yatra. While the brands haven’t shown any significant revenue yet, it should change over time as they build trust among travellers.

Source: Business Standard

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