What has happened is , a good idea which is supposed to manage both demand and supply issue was what helped Oyo grow, i am assuming they worked very hard with local Indian hotels ignored by bigger international sites. However like many other startups they grew too big too fast and the pressure to justify their insane valuation probably led to all kind of tricks as long as they can get away with it.
Is it legal to replace Hotel info with Oyo no ? I am assuming they do it because a lot of small hotels do not know or understand the significance and Oyo can probably do it at scale.
They replace the numbers on Google Maps first - either by adding the hotel for the first time on Maps or by "claim this business" option. Everyone else collects the data from Google Maps (or their services) and now on every website, the hotel has Oyo's number.
> a good idea which is supposed to manage both demand and supply issue was what helped Oyo grow
What was the good idea? As far as I can see, it was a ploy to try and get into the hotel business without the hard stuff, like capital expenditures, training employees, checking quality of hotels, etc.
> ..training employees, checking quality of hotels, etc.
This was the good idea. Lot of hotels everywhere and especially in developing countries in non-metro areas are owner managed, who may not be always at the cutting edge of hospitality industry's best practices.
For a 30% share of revenue if a startup can provide the above service at a scale and across different towns, make these small hotels discoverable and manageable online; then it is a GEEAT idea.
There is no way anyone can do that and produce the returns demanded by SoftBank, so from the beginning Oyo was a farce. Not to mention how ridiculous it is to think a 20 year old with no experience was going to create in a matter of years the work culture and organization and best practices and supply chains that took decades to build for the established brands.
And the established brands do it for, at most, a 15% share of revenue. The Oyo hotels I saw wouldn’t even be qualified to be proper hotels simply based on their build quality.
Is it legal to replace Hotel info with Oyo no ? I am assuming they do it because a lot of small hotels do not know or understand the significance and Oyo can probably do it at scale.