Building OYO as an Uber, not an Airbnb, for Indian Hotels | Hacker News Reader

Building OYO as an Uber, not an Airbnb, for Indian Hotels

forbes.com

33 pointstaphangum14 comments

I don't understand this at all. AirBnB solves the quality control issue with ratings for both sides doesn't it? I've never used Uber, but Lyft doesn't let me pick which driver I get. Does Uber? If not then the last thing I'd want is an Uber for hotels. AirBnB offers filters and search so I can find exactly what I'm looking for, if OYO is the Uber for hotels is it just giving me a random hotel in a radius? Why would I want that?

I had a hard time understanding this analogy too from the title. The analogy is used in terms of the core/most important value proposition. For Uber, it is Predictabilty and for AirBnB Discovery.

In hospitality industry, the problem is not that of discovering hotels but that of having a consistent experience(predictability).

The way Oyo addresses that by having designated Oyo Rooms in partnered hotels which adhere to certain quality criteria like bedsheets, interior decor, toiletries etc.

So, if you book a Oyo Room in a Hotel A or a Oyo Room in Hotel B, the experience should be similar ideally.

This sounds more like Best Western in the United States than Uber.

I had to look up Best Western on wiki. You are right. It is similar to Best Western Hotels.

Interesting...That's an oddly infectious way to build a brand. I don't mean this negatively, but it sounds parasitic in nature. If Hotel A has 10 rooms, and 2 of them are Oyo rooms, assumably with Oyo branding within, is it similar to some form of subleasing?

I don't think Oyo subleases the rooms, but instead has some kind of revenue share agreement with the Hotels. One thing you need to consider is that that they partner with Hotels that are small and independent players and do not have their own brand.

OYO ties up with partners for the entire inventory. Even the hotel name is rebranded as OYO. So from a customer's perspective, they would assume this is a hotel chain.

I stayed in a few Oyo rooms recently. It's pretty much the most convenient and cheapest option for travelers when it works. Sometimes though, the hotel overbooks and can't honor your reservation. Finding yourself on the foreign Indian streets at night can really suck.

While I agree that standing on a foreign street anywhere on the planet is a bad problem, I dont think overbooking as a problem has been addressed by anybody efficiently so far. The only mechanism that exists today is the feedback mechanism by the end user against the hotels.

Interestingly OYO is selling all rooms at a loss. In an effort to build demand side market share.

A room on OYO that costs approx Rs. 1000 is purchased on a guaranteed basis from the hotel at Rs. 1500.

Related story, 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10180818

The comparison to Uber is completely invalid.

They may want to check the availability of the name OYO since it may belong to a geophysical equipment manufacturer headquartered in Houston.

Considering they operate excursively in India, I don't imagine they'd really be concerned about being mistaken for a geophysical equipment manufacturer headquartered in Houston.

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