And Oyo is not just a company now, it is a phenomenon. OYO was founded by Ritesh Agarwal back in 2013. That was a time when it was hard to book a hotel, and people depended on tour operators to do that for them. But now things have changed. Not just in India but in China as well.
OYO became China’s largest hotel chain in a span of just a month. And OYO Jiudian became the country’s largest hotel chain expanding from 320 cities and 4,500,000 rooms till the fourth week of May 2019 to over 337 cities and 5,000,000 rooms.
It surpassed the traditional and home hotel chain brands like Home Inn and Hanting. Oyo is taking over China, as well as US. It is growing on a breakneck pace.
Recently the company acquired Leisure Group. It was Amsterdam based vacation and rental company. But this new move helped OYO to make its presence known. OYO’s presence expanded, it grew its reach from 500 cities in 10 countries to 800 cities in 74 countries.
The credit for the success goes to its large rounds of fundraising. The company does so at regular intervals. It raised $75 million in April from Airbnb, and raised $100 million each from Chuxing, Didi, Graba and Softbank.
The capital helps with the investments. Recently the company hired more than 10000 people in China. And it created 200000 job opportunities for the people in the hospitality sector.
A source of the company said “Oyo is in talks with a new investor to raise $1 billion in the new round and will value the company at $10 billion.”
Oyo Jiudian in China caters to the need of over 3 lakh visitors. The Chief Revenue Officer of OYO Jiudian said that he is happy over 3 lakh travellers use the OYOs. OYO is now looking for strategic partnerships that will help it to expand its territory. It is exploring toe ups with OTAs like Fliggy, Alipay and others.
The OYO in China is here to stay. And the company has been working on a collaboration with online travel agencies in China to attract more customers.
