Oyo to design loyalty schemes for guests

Oyo, the country’s largest hotel aggregator, will roll out a loyalty programme for its guests. The move will help it improve customer retention and offer a greater value for money. In the hospitality space, loyalty programmes have been largely limited to companies that own and operate hotel chains.

“We are working on a loyalty programme. Loyalty programmes have traditionally meant a discount on hotel tariffs. We may do that but we want to give additional things to customers who stay with us longer. We have respect for SPG and similar loyalty programmes. But we will have a mix of conventional and unconventional approach,” Ritesh Agarwal, founder and chief executive officer, told Business Standard.

There is a significant change in loyalty programmes in the new-age digital industry, said Agarwal. OYO is also trying to incentivise hotels to improve service through the OYO Star Programme, where top-performing hotels will be offered additional advantages such as prominent displays on the OYO booking platform and opportunities to be a part of every innovation of the firm.

Founded in 2013, OYO is the largest aggregator of hotel rooms in India operating through a network of 5,900 hotels in over 170 Indian cities. It has a capacity of over 68,000 rooms through these hotels. Oyo has recorded a million check-ins over the past year. In the course of its rapid growth, the company faced several cases of customer complaints. A handful of hotels in key locations were delivering a bad experience to guests and the company has acted against them, de-listing many such hotels. Oyo has been working to improve and standardise guest experience across hotels. A loyalty programme on top of all this will help Oyo to get more repeat bookings.

Top Indian hotel chains like Taj and Oberoi have various guest loyalty programmes. While traditionally, only hotel chains have used loyalty programme in the hospitality space, online travel companies such as Yatra and Goibibo are now also experimenting with loyalty schemes. Yatra has an e-cash programme where a user gets e-cash on every purchase done. The e-cash can be used for future transactions. “We have seen loyalty and retention go up significantly since this scheme was launched in end of 2014. People come back and make purchases using e-cash,” said Sharat Dhall, president at Yatra. Goibibo too offers goCash on every transaction that can be used in subsequent purchases.