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<ul><li>WinZo, a vernacular Indian e-sports platforms, just invested $1.5 million to support local game developers in India. </li><li><keyword id="2774534" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Paavan-Nanda">Paavan Nanda</keyword>, former co-founder of <keyword id="2232457" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Zostel">Zostel</keyword>, and <keyword id="3227125" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Saumya-Singh">Saumya Singh</keyword>, a former member of the <keyword id="7888391" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="zorooms">ZORooms</keyword> team, are aiming to make WinZo a ‘household name' by the end of 2020.</li><li>The aim of the investment is to find independent game developers and partner with gaming studios to bring more original gaming content onto the e-sports platform.</li></ul>WinZo, India's largest gaming platform which is available in local languages, announced a $1.5 million fund to support game developers in India's gaming ecosystem. Founded by Paavan Nanda, former co-founder of ZORooms and Zostel, and Saumya Singh, a former member of the ZORooms team, WinZO is aiming to be a ‘household' name in India by the end of 2020 by targeting first time users in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. The Kalaari Capital-backed gaming platform wants to get the best of the talent with its new investment by "supporting and recognizing the small <keyword id="7888389" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="indian-game-developers">Indian game developers</keyword> who are sitting and making games in isolation," Singh told Business Insider India. So far, WinZo has 27 games on their platform — all made by game developers in India — but they're, more or less adaptations of existing games in the market. "Through this fund we are looking to partner with Gaming Studios as well as Independent Game Developers by offering them an infrastructure to develop top quality content and a powerful platform to monetize their games from day 1," adds Nanda. Monetizing gaming "We have a very strong emphasis on ensuring that the cost of developing a game gets compensated either through the platform or through the basic investment done by WinZO when it contracts a developer to make a game exclusively for the platform, " explains Singh. And, any game that gets pulled onto the platform, gets a share of the revenue. And, where does the revenue come from? As much as 20% of the users on WinZO are making their first online payment using the platform. "We aggregate the existing content and add an e-sports real money layer to it, so people are incentivised to make micro payments," says Singh. The incentive of winning combined, gives the user the thrill of playing with real money and WinZO a 10% platform commission.

A new $1.5 million fund is looking for good game developers in India

At a time when the hospitality industry is seeing new online hotel aggregator entrants that are largely focusing on providing standard affordable stay to any traveler, <keyword id="2825269" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Zo-Rooms">ZO Rooms</keyword> is in efforts to cater to various segment of travelers in the country differently based on their specific needs and demands. For backpackers and leisure travelers, there is <keyword id="2232457" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Zostel">Zostel</keyword> (dorm facility) and ZO homes (bed and breakfast facility); for those traveling with family, they have ZO rooms (budget hotels)/ ZO prime (premium 3 star category)/ ZO star (4-star accommodation) depending on the quality of services customers want and the money they are ready to shell out. Then there is what’s called ZO apartments, largely for corporate travelers who stay for longer duration and want their private space for meetings. 
	 
	<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Exclusive-Zostel-eyes-South-East-Asia-and-European-markets-while-expanding-in-India/articleshow/49551763.cms">ALSO READ: Exclusive: Zostel eyes South East Asia and European markets while expanding in India</a>
 

	While their properties Zostel and ZO homes are fresh and new youth-targeted services aimed at breaking the norms of leisure traveling in India, at the same time it’s clear that with ZO Room’s 1,000 properties spread across 50 cities in India already, they are playing it smart. They do not want to lose out on organizing the fragmented market for the traditional, family and corporate traveler. 
 

	“A Zostel caters to backpackers, not corporate or family travelers. These segments want different set of services from what a backpacker would want. So it is essential for us to provide clear and distinguished value proposition for different customers,” says Dharamveer Singh Chauhan, CEO and co-founder, ZO Rooms.
 

	Focused on building these diverse properties, Dharamveer says, the company wants to penetrate everywhere in the country. Currently, ZO Rooms has expanded its network to 11,000 rooms in 1,000 hotels across 50 cities and towns in India. It is targeting 5,000 hotels and 50,000 rooms in the next six months. Where is all the money coming from? 
 For a startup to be able to foray into newer sectors requires backing, and ZO Rooms flaunts of having New York-based investment firm <keyword id="260318" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Tiger-Global-Management">Tiger Global Management</keyword> and venture capital firm Orios Venture Partners behind them. It is reportedly looking to raise $200 million that will help it in raising capital, but Dharamveer refused to confirm the news or comment on it for now. 

	He, however, said that his company has been lucky in attracting investors from the college days when they raised their first round of funding for Zostels. “Ever since, we have got several offers in our journey. We have decided to go ahead with those who share our vision, have relevant experience and understanding of the ecosystem,” Dharamveer said. He feels if startups have a great team and their business is scalable, attracting funds won't be a problem.
 

	At ZO Rooms, meanwhile, efforts are on to upgrade customer services. “You cannot always expect discounts and cashback offers to get more people to stay at your hotels, a method that our competitors have increasingly resorted to. There needs to be real value for customers to opt for you over others. This is why our hotel partners are much more than somebody we are merely giving bookings to. We give them training, provide them with technology support, infrastructure upgradation, vendor collaboration and most importantly, a feedback mechanism system so that customer concerns can be learnt on an ongoing basis and rectified at the earliest,” says Dharamveer.
 

	In this regard, the company also has what it calls ‘ZO advantage program’ using which the hotel staff at different properties are being trained daily via videos. 
 Also, ZO Rooms has partnered with <keyword id="6354720" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ola">Ola</keyword>, <keyword id="1042120" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Uber">Uber</keyword> and <keyword id="830092" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Zomato">Zomato</keyword> in a bid to make the stay experience for customers more seamless. Another crucial area for hotel budget aggregators in enhancing its services is ensuring security. Even as this can prove to be very challenging as they don't own the properties, yet it is imperative to ensure a secure stay for travelers at the same time. ZO Rooms says it has a decent security mechanism in place. Verification is done on every front from customers to hotel partners. Insurances and due licenses are also taken care of by them when they are partnering with hotels. 

	Interestingly, ZO homes, not everyone is entertained. As a security measure, only people who have already stayed at ZO Rooms at least five times are allowed to use the ZO homes category. Also as a concept, this bed and breakfast facility is a western concept just like backpackers. "It’s a fragmented sector," agrees Dharamveer. He feels it will take another five years for bed and breakfast services to emerge in India because trust and security are key essentials here.
 

	As for other ZO properties, the company's aim is to let people travel unplanned with a free mind. 
 

	"Wherever travelers go, they just have to open their apps and easily find ZO properties in the vicinity that match their requirements. That’s the kind of services and level of trust we want to build with our customers. While redefining traveling experience, we are also providing a simple, seamless process of finding, booking and staying at the best customized accommodations for everyone, everywhere,” concludes Dharamveer.

ZO Rooms has a room ‘available’ for every
traveller

For a company that started its journey two years back when there was no backpacking culture in India, would it be surprising if we tell you <keyword id="2232457" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Zostel">Zostel</keyword> – the only established hostel chain for travel freaks - is now gung-ho on its plans to move into South East Asian and European markets. They already have one hostel running in <keyword id="13486" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Vietnam">Vietnam</keyword>, and the aim is to run hostels in Barcelona, Puerto and Sri Lanka in the next three months. 
 
It’s not that one doesn’t expect such a mammoth step from a relatively new company present in a space that the Indian market may be not fully prepared for. But it irks a bit to think how Zostel is expanding outside without having made inroads into the Indian market fully. 
 
When it came into the picture in August 2013, Zostel followed an operation heavy model where it would lease properties and run them as its own. In March this year, they shifted to a franchise model. Under what they called <a href="http://www.zostel.com/beyou/">‘Zostel Entrepreneurship Development Programme’</a>, the company invited people who wanted to run their own hostels. It was a one-of-its-kind initiative to aid aspiring entrepreneurs to start their own Zostels with the performance linked seed amount of Rs 10 lakhs. Its funda was simple – “you do the investment and run the property as per Zostel’s specifications, we will take care of your sales, marketing, branding and technology support to help you get backpackers”. In return, it charged 15 per cent commission on each booking made from its platform — both app and website — and a monthly marketing fee. As a part of instilling trust in people, Zostel also decided to go ‘public’ with sensitive information about its business and operations like capital expenditure requirements and breakup of the same on per bed basis for setting up a backpacker hostel, operational expenditure requirements, revenue, expenses and profit margin of the company as well as occupancy in last few months. 
 
 
The offer attracted 2,000 applications from across the world out of which Zostel has decided to go ahead with nearly 60 of them. One was from Vietnam where the company has already begun running its first international hostel in Dalat. Now it has decided to stray into Barcelona, Puerto and Sri Lanka because they received applications from there too. This is not to say that there are no further plans for India though. Only last month, the company announced the launch of four hostels across India in Jaisalmer, Pushkar, Rishikesh and Goa taking its total properties in India to 11. Khajuraho, Jaipur, Mysore, Otty, Manali, Spiti, Leh, Puri, Kochi are many other places that will soon get come under Zostel’s net. 
 
But we still asked if Zostel finds international markets more benefitable than Indian market and whether they feel the home market is not ready for the famous western concept of backpacking yet? One of its co-founder said: “No that’s not that case.” 
 
“When we started out in 2013, 90 percent of our customers were foreigners and 10 per cent were Indians. It’s now 65 per cent foreigners and 30 per cent Indians. So, Zostel created the market that did not exist in India. Yes, we are slightly ahead of the curve and would shape a better market in India in the coming years,” said Akhil Malik. 
 
“We are focusing on growing the Zostel network to 25 properties across national and international destinations by the year end. Our vision is to emerge as the largest youth brand with our footprints all over the globe,” the Zostel Hospitality co-founder said. 
 As it goes big, there is hardly any investment the company is making in marketing. <keyword id="6583342" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="backpackers">Backpackers</keyword> move in groups and are well connected and by giving them good services at affordable rates, Zostel claims, it has been able to come this far. And that’s how it will move forward too. 
 The new Zostel properties are being established under the Zostel <keyword id="107737" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Entrepreneurship">Entrepreneurship</keyword> Development Programme. Currently, over 20,000 backpackers stay in Zostels every month. The company offers travelers rooms (women-only dorm, mixed dorm, private rooms) at budgets of Rs 500 a day, and offer services like laundry, access to internet, library, board games and other interactive facilities. It is in the process of launching a one-of-its-kind backpacker app that will tap into this community to share relevant information for the backpacking ecosystem. 
 
(Image credit: Zostel)

Exclusive: Zostel eyes South East Asia and European markets while expanding in India

<ul><li>Oyo’s booking trends show that from 25th October to 31st October, 2019, people are heading to the land of beaches, Goa.</li><li>Meanwhile, Zostel has seen a 32% increase in inbound foreign travelers along with a 28% increase solo female travellers. </li><li>Travel booking platform Cleartrip has also received got bookings for international travel during the <keyword id="6998258" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Diwali-long-weekend">Diwali long weekend</keyword>.</li></ul>When it’s a <keyword id="6369743" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="long-weekend">long weekend</keyword>, travel plans are sure to follow. And there are many who are away from home for Diwali celebrating its away from home. That has increased the business for hotel aggregators and travel booking platforms. Oyo’s booking trends show that from 25th October to 31st October, 2019, people are heading to the land of beaches, Goa, followed by Delhi and Bangalore. The company also said that most Delhiites have booked trips to Amritsar, Jaipur and Lucknow whereas Mumbaikars plan to visit Pune, Mahabaleshwar and Lonavala. People from Bangalore, on the other hand, are planning for Mysore, Ooty, Coorg, Mangalore, Kochi and Puducherry. They are expecting more business from last minute plans as well. “We are expecting the bookings to increase manifold with large traction coming in from last-minute bookings,” said Gaurav Ajmera, Chief Operating Officer, India &amp; South Asia, OYO Hotels &amp; Homes. Another popular platform – Zostel which offers the hostel experience, too has seen a 70% hike in bookings from last Diwali. For the festive season in October, Zostel has received over 14,000 room night bookings with a total expected of 24,000. Zostel saw a 32% increase in inbound foreign travelers, and 27% increase in solo travelers, 42% increase in female travelers along with a 28% increase in solo female travelers. But it’s not just about short getaways, Indians also have long planned international vacations. According to booking platform Cleartrip, Indians have been booking for trips to Thailand, Istanbul, Dubai, Singapore and Malaysia. “Among international travellers, we are seeing an emergence of the quest for new. Thailand bookings that are usually skewed in favour of Bangkok and Pattaya are seeing a shift towards Phuket. Another top emerging destination on the list of international travellers is Istanbul, which has made it among the top 10 destinations this festive season. The emergence of Phuket and Istanbul is also propelled by the new capacity added by Indian LCCs to those destinations,” said Balu Ramchandran, Senior Vice President – Cleartrip.

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A new $1.5 million fund is looking for good game developers in India

Prabhjote Gill

ZO Rooms has a room ‘available’ for every traveller

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Exclusive: Zostel eyes South East Asia and European markets while expanding in India

Anushree Singh

A lot of Indians are celebrating Diwali in Goa, Thailand, Dubai and more

Sanchita Dash

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