OYO founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal has announced at the Skift Forum that OYO and China’s OTA juggernaut Ctrip formed a strategic partnership.
The two parties will carry out in-depth cooperation in terms of traffic exchange, scenario communication, data operation and brand publicity. OYO hotels will be searchable directly from Ctrip platform.
Within a span of 18 months, OYO is now the second largest hotel chain in China boasting 450,000 in 10,000 OYO hotels in 320 cities. The fast-growing hospitality start-up is valued at USD 5 billion.
Agarwal revealed that its secret in succeeding in China is the mindset – OYO battling itself. “We have this paranoia in OYO China. We are invariably paranoid that the OYO Global wants to launch in China, and before they come, we out-execute them in any manner possible.” Therefore, the company thought of itself as its own competitor and just aimed to be better while thinking like a local entrepreneur in the mainland.
There is no stopping OYO’s exponential growth. Agarwal revealed that the company are adding an average of two properties every day.
