Rohit Kapoor, CEO of SoftBank backed Oyo for India and South Asia said he is expecting a recovery for the hospitality sector starting in the next quarter and that Oyo’s only request to the government at this time would be to allow the graded opening of hotels, with adequate precautions.
“If you ask people, coming back to pre-Covid-19 levels will take between 6-24 months. I am more on the six months’ side but that’s just me,” Kapoor said at a press briefing.
He added, “We, as an organisation, are not particularly looking for relief from the government. Whatever monies the government has for the sector, has to go the smaller players first… Our only request is now is the time to allow the graded opening of hotels, with adequate precautions…Give us the protocols and guidelines to slowly allow us to operate.”
Oyo said on Tuesday it is launching background checks for ensuring sanitisation, hygiene, and protective equipment at its hotels as post-Covid-19 protocols. It will also introduce sanitised stays tags for properties that clear these checks.
Oyo said it plans to implement these measures in 1,000 hotels in the next 10 days and in all its 18,000 hotels once the lockdown gets lifted.
Kapoor said the company is currently offering about 50 hotels for healthcare professionals while a dozen are for quarantining asymptomatic people. “These numbers keep going up everyday. Our hotels that are operational for these purposes are running at 40% occupancy to even 100% if next to a hospital,” Kapoor said.
Citing data from travel research firm STR, Kapoor said the budget segment in China is leading the way in terms of recovery.
“China is leading the world in recovery, from a business standpoint. Markets are back and faster than what was anticipated. According to data, the budget segment is clearly leading the way. For us, in the budget segment, occupancies are coming back to the mid-40 range now. They had dipped to a late-teens number,” he added.
Shreerang Godbole, VP, global operations and customer experience at Oyo Hotels & Homes said the company is in the process of implementing minimal touch standard operating procedures for services and is also building crowdsourced capabilities to capture consumer feedback. Godbole said the company will also conduct audits of properties via guests for these protocols besides issuing advisories to guests on dos and don’ts.
Kapoor said the homes business will have a definite advantage going forward because some consumers will prefer taking an entire home for themselves. “Some of these things will happen, but will only get tested once the hotels begin to function.”
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