OYO has trimmed its losses and here’s how it plans to add more rooms, enhance customer experience

OYO Rooms has laid out plans for its future and they look quite promising. The hotel aggregator, which trimmed losses from Rs 496 crore in last year to Rs 325 crore in 2016-17, is planning to double its inventory of 70,000 rooms to 1.5 lakh by the end of next year.

OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal said they will cater to business and leisure travel in India, which is growing and to meet the demand, OYO will add at least 15,000 rooms this year. The company's gross bookings run rate grew to Rs 2,563 crore annually.

"We have been doubling our revenues year-on-year and within this year we will continue to grow our revenues by two-and-a-half times year-on-year. We will see more properties coming up in areas where occupancy rates are high,” Agarwal told ET.

Also, OYO is enhancing customer experience and will be making bookings easier for customers. Moreover, every property will be given a unique number to distinguish it from neighbouring OYO properties and the signages are expected to display the address more clearly.

Speaking about GST affecting OYO, Agarwal told ET, “We and most of our partners think the rates have been thought of very fairly. We have kept our prices similar to what it was before GST. I do not see the GST having very significant implications. The market continues to grow. The demand for business traffic is high. Leisure business demand is higher than ever.”