Are you looking for a cool design with comfortable spaces? "OWN YOUR OWN" Rooms - OYO Rooms. It is India's largest hotel chain which is spread over 180+ cities, founded in 2013 by one of the youngest entrepreneurs of India - Ritesh Agarwal.
Later on, OYO rooms not only became the number one hotel chain of India but also of South Asia, and it is expected that at the end of 2022 OYO room would be the biggest hotel chain not in Asia but in the whole world. OYO rooms provide the facilities like free wifi, complimentary breakfast, a clean and hygienic atmosphere at the rate of INR 800-4K. On average, 3.5 lakh OYO rooms get booked daily.
A 13-year boy from Orissa started wandering for his venture. Either its about entrepreneurship or about any online course Ritesh had attended all. The business idea that he put on the table was very logical and unpopular. He started with unbranded and least popular hotels. He analyzed that there are many hotels in Delhi NCR which are cheap but they lack in good facilities like wifi, food quality, hygiene etc.
OYO mainly focused on market capture. They started with the areas with a maximum number of crowds like near to popular malls, railway stations, airports etc. OYO started tie-ups with small hotels on the condition that if a loss occurs it would be owned by OYO and profit would be shared by both of us. it helped hotels to improve their infrastructure and quality. After their starting success, many hotels started to tie up with OYO rooms and now OYO rooms valuation is 5.7 billion dollars according to Livemint.
There are 4 P's of marketing which we should learn from OYO rooms venture.
1- Product :
There is a lot of potential in small products also if they got proper improvement in quality and services for eg. OYO did a partnership with 0 to 2-star hotels and even guesthouses and standardized them.
2- Place :
If you will take OYO's example, you actually don't need any asset in term of place or property. Instead, you could invest in management quality improvement, followed by proper marketing. It would be win win situation for you and your partner companies. Also, we should focus on maximum market capture like near to popular malls, railway stations, airports etc.
3- Price :
Oyo targeted each type of customer either economic customers or rich customers. that's why they have a price range of 800 to 4k approx. Price should provide equal returns to the customer . because if your price returns are satisfactory then the customer will return for sure.
4- Promotion :
Like OYO we should focus on mass as well as on digital marketing. use all means of social media by targeting potential customers based on their interest and parameters.for eg. OYO organised several campaigns on social media like dubsmash contest, "Aur kya chahiye" videos on YouTube. Promotion should be interactive as much as possible.
Finally, I would like to end with the words of none other than OYO founder Ritesh Agrawal -
"It is extremely important to build or focus something that a 100 people absolutely love using rather than make something that a 1000 people would just, kind of, like."