Expressnews
Chennai:
Global hospitality technology platform OYO has announced that it plans to add more than 150 premium hotels in its portfolio in Chennai in 2023. OYO Rooms plans to support the surge in business travel with this initiative. OYO Room’s expansion will focus on key business hubs such as T Nagar, Nambukbakam, OMR, ECR (East coast road), Airport Chennai, Central Chennai and Anna Nagar.
Premium hotel brands of OYO hotels include Townhouse Oak, OYO Townhouse, Collection O and Capital O. OYO will focus on brands such as Townhouse Oak and Townhouse in the initial phase of expansion.
Hotel owners benefit from a bouquet of specially curated services such as enhanced exposure of the hotel to potential guests with the help of OYO Room’s network of over 15000 corporate accounts and more than 10000 travel agents across India and payment flexibility. This is over and above the customers that come through OYO’s App, website and all the key Online Travel Agents (OTA’s). OYO’s app is the third most downloaded travel app in the world.
In addition to this, they also get the advantage of the trust and safety of the OYO platform, and a round the-clock customer support through OYO’s Artificial Intelligence powered Yo! Chat and end-to-end proprietary customer support platform.
The demand for premium hotels has picked up significantly in the last few months. This could be attributed to the surge in domestic leisure travel, transient travel, pent-up demand from meetings, incentives and weddings segment, and gradual recovery in business travel and foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs).
A report by credit rating agency ICRA says that India’s hotel room supply pipeline is expected to grow at 5-year CAGR of 3.5-4% adding approximately 15,000 rooms to the pan India premium inventory of approximately 94,000 rooms in financial year 2023.
Elaborating on the plan, Anuj Tejpal, Chief Merchant Officer, OYO said “We are seeing a clear trend of people’s willingness to spend more on experiences. Therefore, hotels are now offering additional services and amenities to enhance the travel experience and make it more convenient for guests. Our expansion plan focusing on the growth of premium hotels is aligned with this trend”.
OYO’s focus on premium hotels started in the last quarter of 2022 when it added more than 400 new premium hotels between October to December.
While traditional business travel is a strong growth opportunity, alternative business travel adds an additional layer of growth in 2023. Bleisure travel, extending work trips for leisure, and flexcations, combining remote work with leisure travel are upcoming trends which are likely to shape the growth.
