OYO Strengthens Europe Business With TUI Vacation Homes Acquisition

Hospitality giant OYO has acquired Germany-based TUI’s vacation homes tour operator business for an undisclosed amount in a bid to increase its presence in the European market.

OYO founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal revealed the acquisition in a blog post detailing the company’s January 2020 developments, saying that it has been done by OYO Vacation Homes in partnership with Germany-based online travel aggregator E-Domizil.

E-Domizil operates holiday home vacation rentals, cruise business, and other online travel services. Post-acquisition, E-Domizil will integrate the holiday homes and tour operator business of TUI, which is now acquired by OYO.

Agarwal further added that with this acquisition, OYO Vacation Homes will add 17K new properties. After this acquisition, the total number of properties of OYO Vacation Homes in Europe will stand at 50K. The acquisition is subject to conditions and approvals, in particular from the relevant antitrust authorities of Europe.

Moreover, the acquisition will also help the company to increase its presence from 22 to 26 countries in Europe. The move will also help OYO to strengthen its position in Germany, France and Italy. “Our current offerings in Poland, Greece, Great Britain, Portugal, Norway and the Czech Republic will also expand,” Agarwal added.

In May 2019, OYO had acquired Amsterdam-based holiday rental company @Leisure from media and technology company Axel Springer and rebranded it as OYO Vacation Homes. To further expand the vacation home business in Europe, OYO had invested $335 Mn in the new venture in August 2019. As of now, OYO Vacation Homes claims to be offering more than 90K homes spread over 50 countries across the world.

The latest acquisition amid OYO’s downsizing in a number of markets including India. While in India, the company has laid off around 3000 employees, it has also fired close to 600 employees in China.

Recently, the company also let go over one-third of its employees in the US. According to a Skift report, OYO laid off around 360 employees from its US offices. Similar to India, the layoffs in the US also took place across numerous job categories, including business development managers, talent acquisition leads, and area general managers.