OYO to triple room count in Himachal by 2022

Hospitality chain OYO Hotels & Homes in Friday announced its plans to strengthen its footprint in Himachal Pradesh, amid coronavirus, by aiming to triple its room count by 2022.

OYO opened its doors in the state in 2015 and since then, has added 570 plus hotels and 7,500 rooms to its chain, while generating over 3,000 indirect job opportunities.

In line with the decision of the state to open its border and ease travel restrictions, the company has adopted new SOPs as a part of its 'Sanitised Stays' programme with an enhanced focus on hygiene and cleanliness.

OYO owners dub Covid-19 impact assistance by the company as hogwash

OYO, the largest aggregator of budget hotels in the country, is claiming that the hotel company has initiated a slew of initiatives to financially support OYO owners “to blunt the Covid-19” impact, the hotel owners are not ready to accept the claim at its face value.

The hotel owners suspect the content of the offer which the company has released through the media, is another ploy to “dupe” them to stay put in their assets

 OYO had said that the company, in order to “lessen the burden of payments due and accrued”, will waive off multiple charges like value added service charges, wizard membership accruals, etc. from March onwards from the owners. “Under these initiatives, a total of INR 24 crore discounts has already been offered to over 3000 OYO partners and continues to impact several others,”

Covid-19 support incentives to owners include weekly payments and reconciliation, reduced joining fee and complimentary top up for those who want to join OYO Secure programme, retention linked incentives ranging from 50% starting from April, etc.

The asset owners also question the attempt by OYO to garner brownie points in the name of CSR by offering hotels for covid-19 quarantine purposes to government and disaster management authorities while the company is not paying any rental or minimum guarantee.

 Oyo staff in India to go on leave with limited benefits from May 4 for four months, and also asked all employees in the country to accept a cut in their fixed salaries by 25% due to the impact of the Covid-19 on the hospitality industry

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.

OYO CEO and the Executive Leadership Team to Take Voluntary Salary Cuts

COVID-19 has impacted the global hospitality industry significantly with occupancies of various hotel chains being affected drastically. In this unprecedented and difficult period, Ritesh Agarwal, the Founder & Group CEO, OYO Hotels & Homes, has decided to forego 100% of his salary for the rest of the year. The company’s entire executive leadership team has taken a voluntary pay cut starting at 25%, with many opting for an additional uncapped amount, and some going up to 50% to enable building the runway for the company. This would be effective April 2020 and the entire company is standing together to tide over these times.

It has been a matter of pride for OYO Hotels & Homes that it has retained each and every single leader in the CXO group in the history of the company, and in a difficult time like this, the executive leadership has come together as one strong entity as true partners of the company.

Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & Group CEO said, “The current situation the world over is deeply concerning to each and every one of us. OYO is doing everything to support the world with its limited resources in this pandemic from making isolation centers to finding a safe place for first responders. Given the current business situation, which is unprecedented for our industry globally

Layoffs, rejig one-time exercise, will be over soon: Oyo CEO

Some parts of Oyo Hotels & Homes weren’t probably ready for the pace of growth it has witnessed and the hospitality chain is trying to address such issues this year, says its new chief executive for India and South Asia, Rohit Kapoor in an exclusive interview to The Economic Times. While confirming reports of job cuts at the company, he tells Anumeha Chaturvedi that it is asking about 15-20% of its 12,000 employees to go in a “one-time exercise” that “is going to end very soon”. There is no  deadline from Japanese investor SoftBank to report operational profitability on some businesses, he says, and adds that the management is committed to improving relations with hotel partners.

Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal has reportedly said the company is asking some of its employees to move to a new career. What explains this?
The question that whether some staff members are being asked to go is correct. Over the last one and a half years, there has been an increase in revenue to about 3x, and we had 1-million-plus rooms globally by the end of 2019. But I don’t think we have any hesitation in admitting that growing at the pace that we did over the last three years, we did sometimes go ahead of ourselves … What we mean is that maybe all parts of the organisation were not ready for that pace of growth and that scale of  of operations, and 2020 is the year when we are taking active steps to address this. We have a clear roadmap for continuing to drive success for Oyo for this year and beyond based on factors like sustainable growth.

Oyo sees signs of recovery in China after coronavirus outbreak

 Oyo Hotels and Homes has started to see a recovery in bookings in China, its second-largest market, as the coronavirus outbreak eases up in some parts of the country, the Indian hospitality startup’s Chief Executive Ritesh Agarwal

 A rise in imported coronavirus cases and the lifting of restrictions on movement in some cities in China have raised the prospect of a second wave of infections that could thwart the country’s economic recovery

Oyo, which is backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp , has cut thousands of jobs this year, including in China, as the company focuses on becoming profitable and grapples with the coronavirus outbreak.

Oyo would offer free accommodation at its roughly 300 U.S. hotels to doctors, nurses and other medical first responders who are helping to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

Corona crisis: OYO offers free stay to doctors & nurses in US; Ivanka Trump, Paytm boss bowled over by gesture

 Ivanka Trump, the senior advisor to President Donald Trump, has lauded an initiative by Ritesh Agarwal-founded Indian start-up OYO Hotels to offer free stays to doctors, nurses in the US helping in the fight against the novel coronavirus, describing the gesture as "impactful acts of benevolence".

The OYO press release said that beginning March 24, medical first responders will receive free accommodations at any OYO Hotel in the United States so they can sleep, shower or just get off their feet and recharge.

The medical personnel can call a designated number to get their reservation for the nearest OYO and with a valid active First Responder identification, OYO Hotels will cover all the costs.

OYO Reports $604 Mn Revenue In India With $83 Mn Loss In FY19

OYO says its business across markets is evolving across three key growth stages.

• Stage one: In this stage, the focus of the company is on scale and presence.

• Stage two: Here the major focus is on creating a strong brand resonance and ensuring improved gross margin.

• Stage three: In mature markets such as India, where OYO will focus on maintaining a strong brand presence and recall while ensuring a clear path to profitability, operational excellence, and a strong gross margin.

  Oyo Business Insight:

• The company reduced its losses from 24% to 14% of revenue in FY19

• OYO hosted over 180 Mn guests from over 120 nationalities in the calendar year 2019.

• India contributes to 63.5% of fiscal revenue while international markets generate 36.5% of total revenue

• Increase in both daily guest check-ins across its network as well as an increase in hotels and asset owners across the world,

• In 2019, over 90% revenue coming from repeat and organic users with repeat alone contributing to 73% of revenues

• Gross margin increased from 10.6% in FY18 to 14.7% in FY19, it indicates that the strength of its business model and a positive correlation between market share and economics

OYO ramps up presence in UK; expands to over 100 hotels across 25 cities

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OYO Hotels & Homes has increased its presence in the UK to over 100 hotels across 25 major cities and towns, including London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Blackpool and Torquay.

According to the company, its UK business, which is less than a year-old, has tripled its portfolio in the past three months. 

OYO Hotels Makes Its Entry Into China's Hospitality Market

OYO Hotels has finally announced its foray into the hospitality industry of China officially. Its current chain comprises of over 11,000 exclusive – franchised or manchised – rooms in 26 cities. The list includes Hangzhou, Xian, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Xiamen and Kunming among others.

Earlier in May this year, reports surfaced about OYO’s expansion to China, operating in eight hotels with a total of 400 rooms.

With its foray into China, OYO is set to compete with well-established hospitality players in the country like GreenTree Inns, Motel 168, 7Days Inn, and Home Inns.

Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO – OYO said, “China’s tourism industry is on the cusp of booming and flourishing wherein it enjoys a strong influx of both domestic and international tourists; also the market is as fragmented as the Indian hotel market.”