Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, April 19. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
30.03.2024 - 13:07 / skift.com / Rashaad Jorden / Rafat Ali
Ritesh Agarwal launched Oyo with the ambition of becoming the world’s largest hotel chain. After experiencing some pandemic-era struggles, Oyo has seen the hotel business rebound strongly. Its vacation rental subsidiary in Europe has also done well.
Agarwal discussed a wide variety of subjects with Skift CEO and founder Rafat Ali during the recent Skift India Summit 2024. Here are Agarwal’s thoughts on, India’s surging economy, Oyo’s growing portfolio, and personal highs and lows from the past year. Watch the full interview below.
Agarwal: I think first off, I’m very excited about where I am today. I think that in life, there are always certain moments or certain situations — a journey that leaves a lasting effect on you. So I think the last two or three years have left a lasting effect in me. During Covid, a lot of people tried to anticipate that Oyo probably would not be around a couple of years later. And I think I’m happy that that gave us an opportunity to sort of hunker down, focus on what we know best, and just focus on it. And I think that’s why three years out, we are today at a place where we are.
Thankfully, we talked about three things — then rooms, hotels, revenue slash margins. We did not talk about profits and cash flows because (at) that point in time, that was not the key focus. But I think now we have profits, we have cash flows, and we recognize that next time there is a challenge or an opportunity, we’ll be far better placed to take advantage of it.
So I think I’m happy about the last three years — it has transformed us as individuals, transformed us as a company and I think the ambition is still there. But the ambition has evolved. The ambition has evolved to sort of say that we have to just be better than what we were yesterday, every single day. So it’s a more relative ambition than that of an absolute ambition.
Agarwal: I think I have learned that one of the most critical things as you grow your business is balance. I actually have a picture in our office, and a lot of people ask me why it is there. In India, if you go to a lot of fairs, you’ll find two sticks, a little rope, and a little girl trying to walk on it from one end to the other.
I feel like running a consumer brand is sort of like that. You have to deliver great customer experience – that is critical, that at this price, can we deliver better experience than anyone else in this segment of economy to mid scale, whichever we operate in? How do we give the most revenue for our property owners? How do we make sure that our distribution partners can get access to inventory they would’ve never gotten access to? And how do we, as a company, create enough margins?
So I have put thresholds on each one of them. So consumer
Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, April 19. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, April 16. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
Passing over the Atlas Mountains in 1925, the French military photographer Marcelin Flandrin spotted a Barbary lion walking through the sand. Flandrin had flown the route often enough to realize that the sighting was uncommon. He took a picture, which he published as a postcard sold to travelers visiting Casablanca.
MGM Resorts CEO and president William Hornbuckle made around $38 million in pay in 2023, more than the CEOs of rival casino resort operators Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands, as detailed in recent SEC filings.
Holland America Line is celebrating a pair of sustainable seafood certifications—one from the Marine Stewardship Council, and the other from the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.
With more than 300 sunny days per year, daytime temps that rarely dip below 65, and an armada of resorts, Phoenix, Arizona is a great getaway for any group gathering that prioritizes pool time, day drinking, and a few rounds of golf. But the city's appeal goes deeper: The area's natural beauty inspired designers and artists like Frank Lloyd Wright, Maxfield Parrish, and Paolo Soleri. And despite its enormous growth (the metro area topped 5 million last year), the increasingly diverse city still retains a frontier spirit: Newcomers are reinventing everything from its food scene to its art circuit, making Phoenix one of America's best under-the-radar destinations.
A passenger aboard a New Zealand Air flight from Auckland to Sydney has been fined for urinating into a cup during a delay in deplaning.
The magic of hospitality is staying in a place that isn’t anything like home. A castle, a treehouse, a farm, a yurt: all such places promise an escape from the every day, especially when combined with luxury flourishes that boggle the mind. I am still wondering how ice showed up in the Gobi desert at the Three Camels Lodge in Mongolia or how blueberries came to be served at breakfast at the Explora Lodge on Easter Island. Or, in the case of the Four Seasons in Madrid, how a hotel combined seven historic properties into one sensational art destination.
California residents have a new option for a weekend getaway to Las Vegas. This week, discount airline Avelo launched a new route from LA’s Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR) to Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport (LAS). In celebration of the new route, the airline is offering introductory one-way fares for $57. The new flight route begins next month on May 3 just in time for Memorial Day holiday weekend and the summer travel season.
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Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, April 4. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
Having guided extensively in the American West for the past 15 years, Andrew Roberts knows his national parks. He can pinpoint the best trails in Yellowstone and the prettiest vistas in Zion, and he's fluent in the logistics of getting visitors into and out of the parks. He also knows how difficult it can be to find the right lodging. Campgrounds inside the parks have amazing access, but they tend to be filled with RVs, noisy generators, and crowds, not to mention the fact that park campsites and lodges can easily book up a year in advance or have limited availability.