Articles tagged “oyo”

Oyo has a seductive model of renovating budget hotels, running them efficiently through technology, and marketing them directly to consumers. But the startup risks imperial overreach by entering markets like the U.S. that differ significantly from its core markets in India and China.

Surprising factors have delayed the coronation of MakeMyTrip Group as India's queen of domestic online travel. Paytm came out of nowhere to grab share, Oyo upended budget hotel distribution, Ixigo tried to make price comparison chic, and Booking.com outmaneuvered Expedia for premium hotel bookings. From this scrappy mix, online travel will find new lessons.

Oyo has the money to spend and is putting skin in the game to scale fast in Southeast Asia. The region’s industry will be hearing a lot more of Oyo in 2019. But not everyone may be enthralled.

On its own, Oyo entering Southeast Asia should concern existing budget hotel players. Oyo with Grab should make them go shaky in the knees. Consolidation or new alliances will not surprise anyone.

Grab’s $100 million investment in Oyo is just the start of a strategy to have a tag-team under the same major investor, which is leveraging the strengths of each member of its portfolio. Expect to see more "teams of unicorns" attacking incumbents in the next year or so.

Oyo's surprise move represents a big threat to the likes of Whitbread-owned Premier Inn, which has been a dominant force in the UK scene over the past few years. We'll have to wait for more details to see just how serious a player it might become.

The decision by MakeMyTrip, India's largest online travel agency, to start selling Oyo budget lodging is significant. The move recognizes that the heavily funded Oyo is no longer a rival marketplace and is instead primarily a supplier. Asset-light hotel chains need to wake up to Oyo's rise.

The 23-year-old CEO of loss-generating hotel aggregator Oyo Rooms has a business vision that has attracted total funding of $446 million to date. What could go wrong? Well...

OYO Rooms founder believes that the future of travel is brands becoming their own distributors, which is, of course, every brand's dream. It may turn out to be true for super brands in isolated cases but it would be a very fragmented and unsatisfying user experience. There is a lot of convergence going on but the mammoth online travel agency sector isn't checking out anytime soon.