OYO Rooms Case Study: Founder Ritesh Agarwal

Hello Reader,
       You have probably booked hotels online while going to your vacations or holidays, and most probably you have heard the fascinating name "OYO rooms". So today we will be reading about the case study of OYO rooms.

What is OYO rooms?

OYO rooms is a tech-startup started in 2012 which is basically an aggregator which deals in the booking of hotel rooms. OYO provides its consumer a quality experience at affordable prices. It started with only single hotel way back when in 2012, and now it has more that 7500 hotels in more than 250 cities. OYO has also gone International with it's operations in Malayasia and Nepal. It claims to be the largest hotel network in India and aspires to become the largest hotel chain brand in the world. OYO is offering hassle-free and affordable living experience to every individual.

Founder of OYO rooms

Ritesh Agarwal is the Founder of OYO rooms. From the very young age Ritesh aspired to become an Entrepreneur (which everybody felt that it was crazy). And at the age of 17 years he started his first startup named "Oravel Travels" which provided facilities to book- Villas, hotels, rooms, etc. And later at the age of 18 years he started OYO rooms which was a boom for him. Ritesh comes from a middle class background from the southern part of India. He joined the Indian School of business and Finances, Delhi, but later he dropped out from there and started working on his dream to build the Largest hotel chain of the world. Ritesh in one of his interviews told that, the journey of building OYO rooms was not easy, it was a tough path. But with his Hard work and true dedication his achieved his dreams. Ritesh also says that - He wants OYO to be the worlds largest Hotel Brand.
Today at the age of 24 Ritesh is one the youngest Entrepreneur of India have achievements at International level.

The journey to Success

In 2013 when OYO was started it had only one property but later in july, 2013 it had around 10-15 properties, and the journey began, and today OYO has around 7500 properties in across 250  cities. In 2016 OYO made it's International expansion in Malaysia and Nepal.

What made OYO to become Successful

Affordability:

 OYO promises to provide hassle- free and affordable Hotel experiences.

Standardization: 
OYO guarantees to provide the same facilities and aminities which are shown on it's app and website, during the booking process, OYO makes sure that the hotel partners provide the same customer experience what they had promised.

Technology: 
This is the main thing which made OYO to become successful, OYO has made the booking of hotels very easy. With only 3 clicks and in a time span of 40 seconds a customer can book any room which they like, it also provides the facility to book a property by website or mobile app.

Business model of OYO:

Since OYO operates on a marketplace model, So it makes different property owners to place their properties on the OYO platform. 

Let's have a step by step look at the business model of OYO.

1. OYO books a part of the hotel inventory beforehand.
2. OYO asks the hotel owners to organise and maintain the rooms according to their rules and guidelines.
3. It organises the booked rooms under it's own brand name.
4.The booking are made through the OYO app or website.
5. OYO collects commissions on per booking from the property owners.

OYO does more than 15 million booking in a year and has an annual growth rate of 400 billion in a year.

Marketing Strategy

Since the inception of OYO, the competition in this field is increasing day by day. To maintain it's value and retain it's costumer OYO takes the help of both mass media and digital marketing. OYO has its strong presence on the social media platforms like Facebook and twitter. And it keeps it's audience engaged by providing different offers and discounts from time to time and also organises several campaigns.