Reiterating its commitment to safety, OYO India makes key senior hires

OYO Hotels and Homes, South Asia's largest, China's second largest, and the world's sixth largest and fastest-growing chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes and living spaces, as part of its efforts to improve guest safety and security and bring systemic solutions for all areas of guest experience, today announced two key hires directly in the office of CEO, India SA, Aditya Ghosh.

OYO Hotels and Homes appoint Capt. Shakil Ahmed as Vice President of Security and Risk and Annie Vig as Director - Emergency Response for India SA operations. Together with multiple tech innovations for improved guest experience and safety, the hires will help strengthen existing efforts as the company focuses on elevated guest experience and safety as a key business priority.

Captain Shakil Ahmed, joins the OYO India and South Asia team as the Vice President of Security and Risk. A veteran of the corporate security, brand protection, and business resilience space, Capt Shakil Ahmed has over two decades of experience spanning the Indian Army, Banking and Financial Sector, Pharmaceuticals, FMCG, Manufacturing, BFSI and E-commerce sectors. He has previously led Global Security, South Asia at Pfizer, and brand protection at Diageo India and has most recently led the middle mile logistics and supply chain security program for Amazon in India.

Annie Vig joins the OYO India and South Asia team as Director - Emergency Response. Annie brings with her a rich experience of over 20 years. She is passionate about safety oversight, both, at work as well as home. While at her previous organization- IndiGo, she worked closely with the chief of safety and the CEO and was responsible for developing and leading the implementation of policies and strategies derived from ERM Manual through training, audits, and other modes of communications and collaborating on joint exercises with neighbouring countries and security forces and other agencies.

OYO is committed to creating multiple touch-points with guests for a safe, convenient and comfortable experience across its 9000 plus properties in India. It recently launched an industry first in-app SOS button feature that will enable guests experiencing any emergency situation to not only receive the assistance of the on-ground hotel staff but also benefit from the expertise of a specially trained 24x7 OYO Safety Response Team (SRT) and also initiate a call with local law enforcement authorities.

With a view to helping tourist footfalls increase year on year, OYO's first of its kind in-app SOS button helps guests checking in to an OYO hotel, have the additional advantage of a real-time assistance feature to report and redress any concerning issues with regard to personal safety, especially for solo travellers. This is in addition to the already available in-app support platform - OYO Assist that offers an end-to-end automated resolution to customers, ranging from booking modification to enquiries on OYO hotel policies to claiming for refunds on bookings, all at the touch of a button. The addition of the SOS button is meant to improve both awareness as well as usage of all the 4 safety features that OYO provides:

"Ensuring guest safety at all times as well as providing them with a superlative experience is a priority for us. At OYO, we believe that technology is an enabler and can help us offer enhanced safety solutions to all our guests. We continue to ramp up on technology and talent in the guest safety and experience domains and believe Capt Shakil Ahmed and Annie Vig's appointments will help move the needle forward on all things safety in India SA region," said, Aditya Ghosh, CEO - India and South Asia, OYO Hotels and Homes.

With security, quality, location, and price being key considerations for the majority of travellers in the budget to mid-scale segment, OYO aims to help create a perfect space in every place by solving for each of the said considerations through a combination of technology and on-ground interventions.

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