It looks like there is a new leader in the hotel market in China. OYO Hotels & Homes has become the largest single hotel brand in the country. If analyzing at the hotel group level, OYO is the second biggest hotel company in the country though. The hotelier is notable at the global scale as well. At the moment, OYO Hotels is the sixth largest hospitality company in the world. Moreover, it is the world’s fastest-growing chain of leased and franchised hotels.
The growth is simply enormous. Within just 1.6 years, OYO managed to open not only hotels in Shanghai, Chengdu or Nanjing. In less than two years, this hotelier established its presence in more than 337 cities across China! Currently, OYO has more than 500,000 hotel rooms. This is more than the number of rooms in portfolios of such well-known and traditional brands as Hanting and Home Inn.
In total, OYO invested US$600 million in China. US$100 million were used to improve the quality of customer service and for other system improvements. The hotelier has hired more than 10,000 people, and its business model creates jobs for 200,000 people who are in some way involved in the operation of hotels. The company itself is amazed at the pace at which they are expanding and expressed their gratitude towards employees and more than 300,000 guests who sleep in OYO hotels across China every night.
OYO has completely changed the budget hospitality system in the country. It managed to build a cost-conscious brand, hire necessary talent, and create a loyal customer base. OYO has the biggest presence in the second-tier cities in China but expands as deep as to tier-6 cities. It not only created many direct and indirect employment opportunities for people in smaller Chinese cities but also brought the sought-after personalization and quality to remote destinations. At the moment, OYO sees high-quality customer experience its key priority for the year 2019.
In order to boost recognition and attract more potential customers, OYO Hotels tries to establish better connections with such popular online travel agents as Fliggy, Ctrip, and some others. Among the newest additions, it is important to mention the recent collaboration with Alipay OYO even launched a small program in Alipay. The companies collaborate in various aspects, such as financial services, smart payments, traffic exchange, membership information, integration of scenarios, etc.