Oyo are aggressively expanding. When I was in Nepal earlier this year they had OYO branded hotels everywhere. Since then they seem to have started taking over the super-budget hotels in London. I assume it's mostly the same hotels, but they've been paid to slap an OYO sign on the front.
It's hard to see what actual additional value they bring though. They're not really a stamp of quality, and they're not generally opening new hotels, just rebranding existing ones. Booking websites are hardly a new thing - booking.com and hotels.com are pretty entrenched, and have the advantage that they index every hotel not just ones which agreed to put up the OYO sign. Maybe OYO will take a cut of the booking.com market (which from what I've heard is incredibly profitable), but by building an OYO brand with a reputation for budget low quality, they're moving in the wrong direction to do that.
The problem with Oyo, and its virtually most people who've used it (me included) will concur, is that the Oyo brand itself is tainted. Experiences are extremely inconsistent and the quality is all over the place. Hotels keep withdrawing from the Oyo platform because of non-payment of dues. Oyo's customer service is shoddy.
This business should have been built slowly and carefully. But Softbank's billions meant that they expanded so fast and so soon that they had no quality control in place.
It's a brilliant idea that would have been inevitably successful. But all that money is going to be its downfall.
They(Oyo) seem to an aiming it's focus for the convenience of booking/cancelling/payment s through their app, over everything else, and their app seems decent and focused to that end. That might appeal to many consumers especially in India, where the experience of booking a hotel stay in small and medium hotels is a terrible experience mostly, 8f you tried to do it your self, case in point the hotels in Pahargunj area in New Delhi.
Hotel chains have to share revenue with OTAs like booking.com. OTAs typically have agreements that they get the lowest public rates. Therefore, if you’re a hotel with enough online presence to drive demand, you can keep more of the money by having customers book direct via a loyalty program. One way to do that is a broad network that allows customers to always book directly with you.
It's hard to see what actual additional value they bring though. They're not really a stamp of quality, and they're not generally opening new hotels, just rebranding existing ones. Booking websites are hardly a new thing - booking.com and hotels.com are pretty entrenched, and have the advantage that they index every hotel not just ones which agreed to put up the OYO sign. Maybe OYO will take a cut of the booking.com market (which from what I've heard is incredibly profitable), but by building an OYO brand with a reputation for budget low quality, they're moving in the wrong direction to do that.