India’s largest hospitality chain Oyo Hotels and Homes, has set its marker to global pace. Ritesh Agarwal, the founder of Oyo, will take up a bigger role in the company’s Singapore office in order to help the company to establish itself as a major world leader in the hospitality space.
“My deeper engagement in the global business is a natural progression given our continued growth over the last couple of years and the opportunities in the US, Europe, China, and Southeast Asia,” Ritesh reprtedly said.
The SoftBank backed hospitality chain Oyo was started by Ritesh Agarwal in 2013. The startup was started from a single hotel to over 8500 hotels at present. It is the fastest growing network of hotels, offline and online.
This move is said to be a part of the ongoing structural changes in OYO for the past 12 months as the company continues expanding its global operations.
The company has expanded its services to more than 800 cities in 74 countries, including the US, Europe, UK, India, Malaysia, Middle East, Indonesia, Philippines, and Japan since its inception.
Agarwal also added, “these international plans do not change his continued commitment to India, one of our key home markets, which continues to grow. I will continue to be on the board of Oyo’s global parent entity- Oravel Stays.”
OYO claims to have a strong balance sheet with over $1.5 billion, and has seen a 4.4x YOY growth in revenue in June 2019.
Agarwal further added, “Given how we continue to make forward-looking investments in the form of Capex support to our asset owners, developing our technology, onboarding pricing, revenue management, talent acquisition, training and developments at the group level, we are not profitable yet.”
Last week, OYO has also announced its expansion to Las Vegas in the US in partnership with Highgate.
Apart from Oyo, other strong players in the hospitality startup include Yatra, Fabhotels,Treebo, MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, and among others.
Also read: Oyo enters United States; partners with Highgate to launch flagship property in Las Vegas