After expanding to China and UK, online hospitality major Oyo Rooms is now eyeing Japan as its next destination even as the Japanese capital is gearing itself to host the next Summer Olympics in 2020.
Oyo has already made its foray into China and is reportedly seeing good response. In India, it is the market leader and in terms of fund-raising too, OYO has been able to attract large amounts and its valuation itself has crossed the $5 billion mark.
In Japan, Oyo has just made a token entry into Tokyo with a couple of properties and sources privy to its plans told Economic Times that the formal expansion to add more properties will be carried out over the coming couple of quarters.
Founder and CEO of Oyo Rooms, Ritesh Agarwal had shared the plans for the company last month, wherein he had said of the $1 billion additional funding that the company is raising, $600 million will go towards strengthening the Chinese operations while the remaining $400 million will be for spends in India and some of the other new markets it is exploring in South East Asia and the UK. Oyo made its entry into the UK market only last month.
Experts point out to ET that there are strong reasons for OYO entering Japan. Apart from the Olympics event, which will naturally create a huge demand for hotel rooms, expenses on accommodation by tourists in Japan has been found to be as much as 28% of their overall spends. This, according to a report by Jones Lang La-Salle, a real-estate consultancy firm, comes second after accounting for expenses on shopping. No wonder, OYO Rooms finds prospects in establishing its presence in Japan and may become a truly Indian international venture in the hospitality sector, a rare feat, matched by very few so far.