Articles tagged “oyo”

In Skift’s top stories this week, a legal battle between Southwest and Skiplagged continues, U.S. airlines are a mess this summer, and hotels see first growth since the pandemic.

Critics have been saying for years that Oyo needed to get its house in order and to tamp down on its reckless growth plans. Whether that actually happens or not will become clear over the next year or two.

Oyo will eventually fix its technology, but it will take a protracted period. It begs the question: Why did the budget chain engage in such a hyper-fast expansion in recent years, and insist on building its own operating system when it was clearly so lacking.

Regulators in China, Europe, and the U.S. can certainly screw up on execution of their goals with over-regulation, under-regulation, or initiatives that are off-target. But there's something happening around the globe that points to a new and potentially hopeful era for competition and innovation.

Oyo and its founder have long been accused of being heavy on spin even though all acknowledge that the hotel chain has been a category creator. This interview is excellent because Agarwal faced tough questioning. We know a politician who would have walked out.

Give Tripadvisor credit for its attempts mid-pandemic to diversify its various revenue streams at a time when Google is rising. But the latest push to get price-conscious travelers to book their entire trips on Tripadvisor will be a tough sell.

With parent company Alphabet generating $79 billion in revenue in the first half of 2020, Google is relentlessly rolling out new travel products. Not to mention, it is dictating content-licensing and advertising terms to cash-strapped partners while a pandemic rages. Enough said.

Major hotel companies are swooping into the negotiating room for a deal with Travelodge's UK landlords because they represent the most durable line of business in the volatile industry at the moment: economy, drive-to properties.

Oyo's decision to part ways permanently with furloughed U.S. employees is tied to its view that the lodging company's full global recovery wouldn't occur until the second half of 2021. It's a nice gesture to give them stock options, although the jury is out on whether they'll be worth much in the long run.

Acknowledging a company's shortcomings is a first step toward fixing them. But Oyo will really have to transform its practices if it has any hope of mending relations with hotel owners, some of whom feel burned.