OYO Rooms is a popular budget hotel accommodation provider and has grown quite a bit in 2015, organically as well as inorganically (with acquisition of its competitor, Zo Rooms). OYO Rooms has zoomed ahead of StayZilla, MakeMyTrip and Yatra in India, in terms of total listings on its portal.
In a new development, PayPal has joined hands with OYO Rooms to allow global consumers to pay for their accommodation and Indian customers to pay for their international bookings. OYO Users will be able to pay for their bookings in Malaysia and other countries in Southeast Asia through PayPal.
PayPal is one of the largest global online payments company, with a significant user base in India. This sort of tie-up with allow wide section of users to have a safe and secure transaction while making payments for Oyo Rooms.
OYO Rooms has recently forayed into international market, starting from Malaysia in Southeast Asia and plans to expand further in the region. This gives OYO an excellent opportunity to source its transactions in these regions from India.
Speaking of the venture, Hamish Moline, Regional Merchant Services – PayPal Asia-Pacific, said, “Growth of new age businesses like OYO Rooms can be further accelerated if they are protected against online payment risks and frauds. PayPal’s technology protects merchants such as OYO Rooms against unauthorized transactions and mitigates associated risks.”
Will it benefit OYO Rooms?
Before answering this, I am sure of one thing and that is that PayPal is going to benefit from this because more the number of transactions, more will be the profit for them per transaction. PayPal is large and old enough to have standardized their system and reduce any negatives.
On the other hand, OYO Rooms is relatively new and is disrupting the hospitality space in India. Owing to thousands of transactions and bookings everyday, there needs to be discipline in terms of safety of money. Of course, a VC is funding OYO Rooms at the end of the day, but who likes losses?
I think this is going to be pivotal to OYO Rooms and its future associations from here on, since it will attract a lot of global travellers wanting to book a stay in India through a safe system. Not only that, but Indian customers can also be assured of the low risk through PayPal for internal transactions.
All in all, OYO Rooms has signed a very sweet deal for itself, if only they improve their listing services and customer experience, users have been complaining about for quite some time now.
[…] a new development, PayPal has joined hands with OYO Rooms to allow global consumers to pay for their accommodation and Indian customers to pay for their international bookings. OYO Users […]