HBI Staff | Hyderabad 
OYO introduced an improved flagship patron-facing app – CO-OYO. The prominent additional capabilities possible through the relaunched app enable patrons to design and run their own promotional programs such as Discover Sale (to attract new customers to their hotels), Flash Sales (empowers independent local hotels to run their own offers), among others.
The upcoming festive season is pegged to drive high demand across the country and cities like Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai are expected to lead the demand curve. Among leisure destinations, Goa, Puri and Visakhapatnam are already witnessing a high influx of tourists. This confidence comes at the back of significant demand for forward bookings ahead of the Durga Puja and Diwali holidays. During the peak travel season, the ability to drive personalised promotions at a local level benefit independent hotels to increase occupancies and support revenue maximisation. For instance, a hotel in close proximity to a Durga Puja pandal can adjust its pricing to optimise prices per room owing to high demand, whereas, a hotel located further away from a pandal can roll out handpicked offers to attract more consumers.
The all-new CO-OYO app will now have a one-click-check-in capability for bulk bookings to minimize time taken for check-in. New features also provide competitive data insights about other hotels in a specific geographical cluster to support higher revenue generation for each hotel. The new app has been designed to enhance customer experience, operational efficiency and aid in maximising revenues by utilising the power of data science, SaaS technologies and AI technologies that offer real time insights to OYO patrons (hotel owners). Through the renewed app, owners have the potential to boost revenues by 1.5x – 2.4x (compared to independent hotels) in what is being anticipated as a strong festive season after many years.
The new and revamped pricing section on the CO-OYO app advises patrons on the right pricing to attract larger footfalls. This enables smarter and personalised promotions, alerts the patrons when the pricing is suboptimal and dynamically optimises prices. Some of these customised promotional campaigns include Flash Sales and OYO’s new customer onboarding initiative – Discover Sale, among others. In addition, there is a new calendar view and a revamped Tariff Manager, enabling patrons to make pricing adjustments based on neighborhood insights, seasonality, among other factors.
The all-new CO-OYO app offers hotel owners a one-stop-solution platform for pricing management, enhancing customer experience, boosting demand and revenues. With CO-OYO, local hotel owners can strengthen their customer experience via direct access to reviews and ratings, data insights on neighborhood hotels, and the ability to run their own promotions. This gives OYO hotels an edge above others to drive more bookings during the peak holiday season. The majority of the local hospitality sector in smaller towns and cities currently use multiple apps or software platforms to manage their daily operations and revenue management, which often are not integrated with each other. Owners are therefore dependent on their staff to manage bookings and customer experience. With the all-new CO-OYO app, owners with OYO have larger visibility and transparency about their daily operations and revenue management. It also offers owners the choice to share limited accessibility with their on-ground staff.
Anuj Tejpal, Chief Business Development Officer, OYO said, “In India, hoteliers usually depend on a combination of different platforms to boost revenues and manage daily operations, such as OTAs, online booking management systems, digital payment getaways, content management, price parity management, marketing, among others. This can significantly take up expenses on resources and time commitment by hotel owners, leaving many entrepreneurs with limited choice to run their hotels the old-fashioned way – manually. Consequently, this leads to lower customer satisfaction and retention. Hotels with OYO get benefits CO-OYO’s cohesive full stack technology accessible on a single platform, ability to run promos at their own discretion, among other features, empowers hotel owners and their staff with necessary tools to boost revenues.”
Sharing his experience, Deepak Rana, an OYO patron from Noida said, “CO-OYO has brought a great sense of relief to our lives. Everything that we need to understand about our daily operations, and boosting occupancies across channels based on neighborhood insights. Over the past few months, travel has recovered to a great extent. With the new CO-OYO app, we don’t need to fuss about using different applications to run our operations efficiently. My front desk staff and I have full visibility to every aspect of the business on our smartphone through the CO-OYO app. I find it extremely convenient and easy to browse through the various features, which is why I tend to spend a good amount of time on the app daily. The upcoming holiday season is crucial for us, small and medium hospitality businesses. OYO’s features help us make informed decisions to run our own promotions and ability to bulk check-in, among others will surely help us run a smooth and successful season.”
The revamped CO-OYO app boasts features such as Growth Hub, Guest Experience Hub, Opt-In program options, Bookings Hub to support small and medium hospitality businesses run their operations through a single platform on their smartphones. The app can be easily downloaded by the front desk staff or property manager as well as the property owner, therefore offering higher transparency and ease of use to all stakeholders.
Having the right room rates plays a critical role in driving customer interest – being too underpriced or overpriced can significantly impact revenues. Keeping this at the forefront of this feature, OYO’s Price and Promotions Hub offers personalised notifications based on neighborhood hotels and local insights. Patrons receive alerts when their properties are not correctly priced along with a recommendation on the right pricing. Patrons also have access to seasonal and tailor-made promotions for consumers.
Introduced for the first time, the revamped Bookings Hub offers patrons and property managers access to a slew of features such as a one-click check-in process and bulk check-in option to manage multiple bookings at once. Patrons and property managers can access all the features necessary for operations and revenue management by downloading the CO-OYO app on their smartphones, eliminating the need for a front desk laptop or tablet. OYO believes this feature offers owners and front desk managers greater flexibility to manage day-to-day operations and enhance customer experience during the upcoming peak travel season.
Growth Hub is a data-driven feature that appears under the ‘Ways to improve revenue’ widget on the patron-facing app. This works as a personalised recommendations engine, developed to provide patrons with the choice to opt for different promotional offers and several other actions to secure higher revenues.
