OYO Hotels and Homes operates a network of over 18,000 franchised and leased hotels across 500 cities in 10 countries. The UK, China, Malaysia, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and most recently Japan. The business is backed robustly by investors that include Softbank, Airbnb, Sequoia and Lightspeed, and is now investing substantially in the UK hotel sector.
Hotelbeds is the world’s number one accommodation wholesaler, also known as a ‘bed bank’, having grown through a series of acquisitions in recent years. Hotelbeds is also a market leader in travel support services such as airport transfers and car hire, key elements of almost every hotel experience, valuable touchpoints for access to cross sell.
OYO has signed a distribution deal with Hotelbeds to have direct access to their significant slice of the global travel market. The agreement provides OYO with access to Hotelbeds’ network of 60,000 travel-buying intermediaries and airlines in more than 140 markets.
Businesses using the Hotelbeds platform will now also be able to sell OYO’s portfolio of 18,000 hotels.
Hospitality Disruptors say hello to the UK
OYO is ‘labelled’ as a hotel chain, but it also for some fits as an online travel agent, and others a brand network, maybe it’s a mix of all three? Whatever the label applied it is growing at a speed that demands UK hoteliers’ attention.
OYO has certainly caught the attention of STR who recently said if OYO were treated like the other big hotel chains, it would be number one in the market by number of hotels and in the top 10 in terms of rooms. OYO claims to be the sixth largest hotel chain globally.
Robin Rossmann: STR’s Operations lead, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, Central and South AmericaSpeaking in March at the International Hotel Investment Forum, Robin Rossmann who leads STR’s operations across the Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and Central and South America regions, put OYO’s success to date down to two things. The first being the 14 day speed of rebrand and upgrade execution and the second being pricing.
Rossmann said: “They’re doing something very different to every other major hotel group, even franchise hotels are required to give 100 percent of their rooms inventory to OYO. Why does that matter? Well it gives control over pricing that is beyond any other major group”.
OYO has to date raised circa $2 billion in funding with Airbnb recently investing between $1-200 million.
H&C News spoke with OYO from their UK headquarters in London this week and understand that OYO has plans to spread its wings in the UK at a similar pace to its wider global expansion. We also understand that a significant recruitment drive is already underway and will accelerate.
The world of technology is used to disruptors, we feel sure that hospitality UK will have to do the same.
