OYO Accused Of Listing Treebo Hotels Without Clearances

Gurugram-based hospitality unicorn OYO has found itself in a fresh battle against its competitor, Treebo. The company’s executive allegedly submitted “invalid” no-objection certificates from about 70 hotels to the OTA Booking.com .This was reportedly done to change the ownership listing of the properties to OYO from rival Treebo.

To begin with, when hospitality chains like OYO and Treebo list a hotel, they receive permissions from these hotels to promote the hotels on their websites as well as other OTAs like MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Booking.com etc.

The OTA said that after making necessary checks it had identified that the NOCs provided by OYO for these properties were “invalid”.

Booking.com reportedly said that it required accommodation partners to abide by all applicable laws and compliances. “There is a standard process that we follow at Booking.com for listing properties and the same process is being followed right now as well,” the company said.

OYO did not respond to Inc42’s queries on the matter till the time of publication.

The development comes at a time when the travel and hospitality industry has been severely hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and quarantines. OYO had recently told its employees that since the outbreak, OYO’s occupancy rate and revenues have dropped by more than 50 to 60% and the company’s balance sheet has come under severe stress.

Exclusive: MakeMyTrip Gets INR 73.5 Cr From Mauritius Entity As Virus Pinches OTAs

In the wake of the ongoing slowdown in the aviation and tourism industry, Gurugram-headquartered online travel company MakeMyTrip has raised INR 73.5 Cr in two tranches from Mauritius-based entity — MakeMyTrip Limited.

According to the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) filings accessed by Inc42, MMT has raised INR 37 Cr on March 16 while the parent company infused INR 36.5 Cr on March 9

MakeMyTrip issued 21,81,461 shares to the company at INR 340 per share with a nominal price of INR 10.

MakeMyTrip had reported an adjusted operating loss of $11.2 Mn in Q3 2020, down from $19.3 Mn in the previous quarter in the same fiscal. Meanwhile, the company’s revenue increased to $146.9 Mn, from $118 Mn in the previous quarter.

For MakeMyTrip, the impact is quite visible from the downfall of the share prices. From $29.95 on February 12, MakeMyTrip‘s share price declined to $10.8 on March 18. The situation is quite similar for MakeMyTrip competitor Yatra as well. Yatra’s share price fell from $3.79 on February 14 to $0.91 on March 18.

MakeMyTrip’s Revival Plan

To start with, MakeMyTrip’s Kalra and CEO Rajesh Magow shared a revival plan with the company’s employees. Some of the measures include reducing variable costs such as advertising, sales promotions and payment gateway costs, along with optimising IT infrastructure and expenses relating to the functioning of our offices and other establishments.