SuperAgent aims to enhance the booking experience for offline travel agents
It also offers a refined search to show properties tuned to a travel agent
OYO claims to be trusted by 45K travel agents
Gurugram-headquartered hospitality company OYO Hotels and Homes has yet again expanded its product suite. The latest product addition is SuperAgent, an online portal for travel agents.
The company said that SuperAgent aims to enhance the booking experience for offline travel agents by offering a simple and quick way to book an OYO accommodation for their customers.
SuperAgent provides pre-registered and verified offline travel agents access to OYO inventory. Bookings can be made for bulk travel, package bookings etc. The company claimed that SuperAgent offers travel agents a simplified homepage including recent searches, recommended hotels, great deals, and important actions right at their fingertips.
It also offers a refined search to show properties tuned to a travel agent with relevant prices, a detailed commission report, simpler sales summary and reporting and more. The SuperAgent website shows that OYO has over 35K hotels in over 800 cities in over 28 countries. It claims to be trusted by 45K travel agents.
Gaurav Ajmera, chief operating officer, India & South Asia, OYO Hotels and Homes, said, “Over the course of the last four years, OYO has partnered with close to 12000 Travel Agents across India, thereby reaching out to millions of customers. With a focus on further strengthening our relationship, we have created SuperAgent – an intuitive and self-serve environment that will simplify the booking experience for travel agents and thereby help them engage better with consumers.”
OYO’s offerings vary from holiday homes, casino hotel and coworking spaces to budget hotels, corporate stays and more. It is present in the US, Europe, UK, India, China, Indonesia, and Japan among other countries.
OYO has recently said that it has seen a 3.8x YoY growth in revenue in Aug 2019 (vs. Aug 2018), with 1.2 Mn rooms under management across hotels and homes. The company said it has a strong balance sheet of $2 Bn across group companies, a significant part of which will be further invested in the business.
OYO’s expansion into travel agent industry is yet another diversion from what it started as— a budget hotel. The company’s expanding horizons, increasing valuations and global expansion are in stark contrast with increasing unhappy customers and protests by hoteliers.
With SuperAgent, OYO is competing against well-established market players ranging from MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Cleartrip etc who enable agents to search and book hotels. OYO, for the longest time, has claimed to be a knight in shining armour for budget travellers of the country and the addition of a new product for agents is its entry into yet-another niche market opportunity.
