Airbnb is looking at the prospect of entering into a deal with homegrown unicorn Oyo and is a looking at a potential investment of $100 million to $200 million in order to enter the hotel business in India and China, according to a media report.
This comes just weeks after the US-based Airbnb acquired US hotel booking startup HotelTonight for more than $400 million.
Earlier, Oyo had said that Airbnb could be a potential partner since Oyo manages two dimensions of the homestay market which Airbnb doesn’t - managing day-to-day operations & guest check in/check out fulfilment, and home infrastructure.
“There are three main components to the OYO home business model… Airbnb is only the first of these three — a successful platform that lets hosts lists their homes and guests discover and book them,” Oyo’s chief growth officer Kavikrut told Financial Express Online.
Kavikrut added that Oyo is growing and will soon own all the three layers of the business.
Oye Home presently operates more than 6,000 fully-managed residential accommodations in India and Dubai. The company set foot in Dubai in January this year.
“In India, we are focused on top travel destinations including Goa, Shimla, Pondicherry, Coorg, Manali, Dehradun, Wayanad, Coorg, Udaipur and Jaipur among others. In UAE, we have 40 homes and plan to expand to 200 in the next 6 months,” said Kavikrut.
Larger Picture
Oyo had said earlier this month that its hotel sates globally increased by 4.3x from $0.4 billion in 2017 to $1.8 billion in 2018, as per a PTI report. “Globally, we have reached over 4,58,000 fully controlled leased and franchised keys (rooms) with a realised value run rate of $1.8 billion,” said CFO Abhishek Gupta.
Realised value run rate refers to the realised value net of cancellations, discounts and forward bookings announced on the basis of December of the respective year.
The company claims that it will soon become the world’s largest hotel chain with the number of rooms it is adding and the realised value run rate.