OYO to show vaccination status of partner hotels' staff on its app

Hospitality firm OYO said it will show Covid vaccination status of the staff of its partner hotels on its app as it believes that such initiative will be a key factor in building trust among consumers

Hospitality firm OYO said it will show COVID-19 vaccination status of the staff of its partner hotels on its app as it believes that such initiative will be a key factor in building trust and confidence among consumers when they are ready to travel again.

The initiative, 'VaccinAid' is crucial to aid the recovery of the impacted tourism and travel industry, OYO said.

"Vaccination is the most important intervention against COVID-19. We are launching an industry-first feature, VaccinAid, to show self-reported vaccination status of hotel staff across OYOs," OYO Founder and Group CEO Ritesh Agarwal said in a tweet.

OYO's guest surveys show that 87 per cent will prefer hotels with immunised staff when they plan to travel again. "Vaccination visibility when self-reported timely and accurately will become a confidence builder for travel recovery," he added.

"VaccinAid is our small attempt to promote the larger cause of vaccination among our customers as well as our hotel partners & their staff," Agarwal said.

In a statement, OYO said with VaccinAid, as a part of the booking journey, users on its app will have visibility of hotels and homes with vaccinated staff, either with the first dose or second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

This enables users to book hotels with immunized staff and thereby acts as an accelerator on both sides of the platform, it added.

"This initiative is crucial to aid the recovery of impacted industries across the board, specifically for travel due to pandemic-led restrictions and the worry of stepping out," OYO Global COO & Chief Product Officer Abhinav Sinha said.

OYO Hotels & Homes currently has over 1,00,000 small hotels and homeowners across 800 cities in 80 countries on its platform.