Oyo’s new offering is directed at independent business travellers
Oyo B Direct has a simplified process of getting a GST invoice for hotel bookings and also makes it easy for employees to claim travel reimbursements from their office. While Oyo B is targetted at corporate travellers, Oyo B Direct is aimed at independent corporate travellers, small-scale business travellers and SMEs.
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New Delhi: Hotel booking start-up Oyo Hotels and Homes, which has grown into India’s leading hotel chain in just five years, has over 6,000 corporates booking hotel rooms with them every month under its corporate business solution — Oyo B. The SoftBank-backed start-up has now come up with Oyo B Direct to cater specifically to the needs of independent corporate travellers, small-scale business travellers, who do not often have dedicated resources to manage company travel.
In an interview with Livemint, Oyo’s spokesperson and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Anil Goel said the start-up’s new offering had a simplified process of generating a GST invoice for hotel bookings and also made it easy for employees to claim travel reimbursements from their office. However, not all hotels in Oyo’s inventory are available for corporate travellers.
Edited excerpts of an interview with OYO CTO Anil Goel:
What are the major benefits for a corporate house to enroll in OYO B and OYO B Direct?
The biggest benefit we believe the OYO B Direct solution offers is the simplified process of generating a GST invoice for stay with us. The added benefits include hassle-free cancellations, where a customer will not be charged any cancellation fee with the exception of cases of bulk bookings and peak times.
Apart from this, support from the OYO premium B2B escalation desk is another add-on that the corporates and travellers benefit from.
Since the launch, OYO B is a trusted travel solution for over 6,000 corporates every month including Nestle, Lava International Ltd, Micromax Informatics, Essar Oilfield Services India Ltd, Apollo Hospitals, Byju’s and Future Group. Companies using the OYO B solution have successfully realized up to 40% savings in their travel cost.
What is the difference between OYO B and OYO B Direct?
While OYO B is the corporate business solution, OYO B Direct is an extension, empowering independent corporate travellers, SMEs and employees of organizations, where the company is not involved in setting up travel partners.
What are the benefits of OYO B Direct?
The biggest benefit OYO B Direct offers is automatic GSTIN input for invoices which is often a hassle for corporate travellers when they are directly dealing directly with a hotel. With OYO B Direct, the traveller just needs to provide the company’s PAN card once while registering and receive the correct GSTIN, billing address and invoice for each booking.
Is the entire inventory of OYO Hotel also available on OYO B Direct?
We have handpicked corporate-friendly OYO hotels in 180+ cities in India from which travellers can make a choice based on their needs. They can make a selection from categories like OYO Rooms, OYO Townhouse, OYO Home, SilverKey, Capital O and Edition O when they enrol for OYO B Direct. Whenever corporate travellers search for OYO’s in a specific area, they come across a curated list of business-friendly accommodations.
Are OYO corporate bookings meant only for big corporates or also for SMEs and small business units?
The idea of OYO B Direct is to bring OYO B to every corporate traveller. It is primarily aimed at employees of organizations, where the company is not involved in setting up travel partners and authorises a traveller to make bookings and claim reimbursements according to company policies. This especially empowers independent corporate travellers and business travellers, who do not often have dedicated resources to manage company travel.
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