Bengaluru: OYO Hotels & Homes, the world’s sixth largest chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes & living spaces, is set to invest $100 million in China towards quality and system improvements and hiring, it said in a statement on Tuesday. This allocation is a part of the $600 million OYO had committed last year to its China business.
In 18 months since it entered China, OYO has expanded its presence to over 337 cities and 500,000 rooms, hiring over 10,000 people. As a part of its core team in China, it has appointed former Anheuser-Busch InBev executive Zhu Lei as its chief revenue officer.
“For the year 2019, we have recognized key priorities, including a deep and wide expansion of OYO’s chain while ensuring a consistent product and service delivery, and high-quality customer experience," said Shella Ng, general counsel, OYO China, in a statement.
In China, OYO is working in the fragmented and legacy-driven budget hospitality space by standardizing offerings and services under its brand. With second-tier cities at its core, OYO Hotels’ chain has extended deep into China’s tier-2 to tier-6 cities.
To ensure asset owners have improved visibility on potential customers from around the world, OYO Hotels is now exploring ways to collaborate with online travel agents (OTAs) such as Fliggy, Ctrip and others, along with other consumer traffic-building platforms. The company recently announced a strategic partnership with Alipay and later launched the OYO miniprogram in Alipay. The two companies aim to cooperate in areas like membership, traffic exchange, scenario integration, finance services, smart payment, credit life, and hotel upgrades.
OYO has been expanding across the globe over the last two years. Today, it’s present in over 80 countries including US, UK, Malaysia and Japan. Valued at over $5 billion, it has so far raised nearly $1.5 billion from investors such as SoftBank, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital.
“As we move into the next phase of growth at OYO Jiudian (Hotels), our focus will continue to be on hiring and retaining top talent while at the same time optimising operational efficiency across all departments," said Sam Shih, chief operating officer, OYO China.
