From Kanpur to Kuala Lumpur. Hello 2016!

From Kanpur to Kuala Lumpur. Hello 2016!

2015 has come to an end and it has been an exciting year for us to say the least. We are grateful that we had a terrific ride and we never imagined we will be where we are today. In Jan 2015, we were in just 3 cities across the country and we ended the year with 165 cities, 4000+ properties and 40,000+ rooms. We went from Gurgaon to Srinagar to Shillong to Bharuch to Alapuzzha. We went to places, to towns, to streets where we didn’t even think we will see an OYO sign in our wildest dreams.

But the party has just started and we begin 2016 with two things that are very close to my heart – official blog and launching overseas.

The Official OYO Blog

OYO is new for the industry, intriguing to many and a comfortable stay for most of us. 🙂 Many friends, partners and peers in the startup world are often curious about what we do, how we do and why we do it. And now that we have had an intense year of hard work and achievements, we are launching our official blog to give everyone an inside peek into OYO. For leisure stories check out our travel blog.

We are now in Malaysia!

A small team at OYO worked very hard last 3 months to launch OYO in the international market. And after a December of stealth testing, I am happy to announce that you can now officially check into an OYO in Kuala Lumpur. We are all very excited and as always with a city launch, you can see the visiting card photo! Many travel markets across the world have the same characteristics as here in India – trust deficiency, unorganized supply and the love for travel. This year we will take OYO to all such markets. Check out our first three OYOs in Malaysia.

As we usher into the New Year I believe it’s also time to reflect back and thank the people who have helped us at every step – our partner hotels who trusted us with their rooms; our investors who believed that we had more than just fire in our bellies, who believed in our business plan and helped us grow bigger.

We are thankful to great organizations who saw merit in partnering with us. And most importantly, I am thankful to my colleagues. Each one of us, who joined OYO, has loved it as our own. It gives me immense happiness to see us working together day and night to take OYO to greater heights. We were just a team of 150 at the beginning of the year and now we are 2,300. Our family has grown bigger but, it’s still as close-knit as it always was.

However, we have just started and in 2016 there is a lot more to come and many more dreams to realize.

Happy New Year. Let’s have the best year of our lives. 🙂

Meet the author / Ritesh Agarwal

Ritesh Agarwal is the founder and CEO of OYO Hotels & Homes. Travelling across India at the age of 17, Ritesh stayed in more than 100 bed and breakfasts, guest houses, and hotels to realize there was a massive dearth of affordable and good-quality hotels in the budget hotel category. He believed that everyone deserves a beautifully designed, chic and comfortable living space. And everyone deserves a better life. That’s how OYO was launched in May 2013. OYO today is the world’s leading chain of hotels, homes, and spaces.

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