Yatra, OYO partnership highlights changing demands in Indian travel space

Yatra, OYO join hands to give a tough competition to the other players in the market

The announcement of Yatra’s partnership with OYO has brought the idea of cost-effective travel bookings in the limelight.

The Gurugram-headquartered, 11-years-old online travel and hotel booking company, Yatra Online Inc, has entered into a partnership with India’s Largest Branded Network of Budget Hotels, OYO, on October 2, 2017. This decision comes when the budget hotel segment is seeing a tremendous growth in the country and OYO has emerged to be a real game-changer in this new trend. Oyo, after overtaking Zo rooms, an erstwhile budget hotel room aggregator, in the year 2016, is currently India’s biggest hospitality firm.

The new venture has allegedly spurred hopes for both the companies and is believed to be a major landmark in India’s domestic tourism market.

On one hand, with this partnership, Yatra will continue to be the largest provider of hotels in the domestic market, by bringing in total of 70,000 hotels in India under its umbrella, while, on the other hand, OYO will now get a new access to millions of travellers who book on Yatra’s official website.

With OYO’s strong presence in tier II and III markets, the partnership will further help Yatra to enhance its reach to these markets of the country. Additionally, now Yatra customers can make changes to their OYO bookings on Yatra’s website and can also contact Yatra’s customer support directly for any issues with OYO bookings.

This new enterprise comes at a time when India is posing a great tourist destination for all kind of travellers. According to the World Travel Market Global trend’s latest report, India is performing well in the tourism sector. Availability of cheap air tickets and recovery from the stagnation in hospitality sector due to the increasing mobile booking has made India an attractive tourist spot both domestically and internationally.

OYO’s hotels have earlier been delisted from several online travel agents’ platforms including Yatra, MakeMyTrip and GoIbibo.

“We welcome Yatra to avail our economy and mid-market offerings that deliver the right balance of price, location and quality. Our mission is to bring high-quality living spaces to all Indians and this alliance will help us penetrate deeper into emerging travel markets,” said Ritesh Agarwal – Founder & CEO, OYO.

Dhruv Shringi, Co-founder & CEO, Yatra.com, said, “Customer’s needs and preferences are constantly evolving. They seek newer and more interesting ways to make their travel bookings seamless and cost-effective. We, as a company, are focused on being innovative and providing a differentiated experience to our customers. Our partnership with OYO is a firm step in that direction and enables us to deliver a unique proposition to our customers allowing them to choose from an unmatched variety of travel and accommodation options in India.”

Similar to this partnership, another major deal was seen in 2016 between MakeMyTrip and GoIbibo. Both the companies were believed to be facing losses in the financial year of 2014-15 and this merger was considered to be the biggest merger in the Online Travel industry. The companies also have separate sections to meet the growing demand for budget hotels in India. MakeMyTrip aggregates budget hotels under Value Plus, while Goibibo operates GoStays. After the merger, the reports confirmed that MakeMyTrip and GoIbibo have emerged as market leaders in the online travel category, capturing 31 pc and 27.4 pc market share, respectively, as on July 2017.

Recently, Yatra won the National Tourism Award for ‘Best Domestic Tour Operator (Rest of India)’ at the India Tourism Awards held in September 2017 for the year 2015-2016.This is the third time in a row that Yatra has bagged this award. Moreover, OYO was also chosen as India’s Most Promising Hotel Network (HolidayIQ Better Holiday Awards 2017). Also, NASDAQ listed Yatra recently received INR 1 billion (USD 15.4 million) in venture debt from InnoVen Capital which is India’s largest venture debt transaction till now.