Despite receiving backlash by hoteliers, OYO group is rapidly expanding in the United States and has hired former employees from tech giants like Amazon, Uber in its top management team.US has emerged as the third biggest market for India’s fastest growing hospitality startups partnering with 200 hotels since its launch in June 2019.
Top executives at OYO’s US team told this newspaper that there are 450 employees working for OYO in the US currently and it has generated over 4,000 jobs.
OYO has relocated Abhinav Sinha, its global chief operating officer to the US and appointed him to an enhanced role as the operating partner for US. Besides, Leslie Danford has been appointed as its Midwest Regional Head. Based in Chicago, Danford will be focused on building and strengthening OYO’s operations across 10 states in the US. It also appointed Alejandro Chouza, formerly with Uber, as its Northwest Regional Head.
Other senior leaders joining the team include Chris Nowak as Vice President - Legal, and Marcus Higgins as Expansion Head in the US. Softbank based OYO group said that it has committed $300 million for expansion plans in the US.
Top sources in the company said that OYO recently signed a deal with Biz2credit, a leading online financing resource for small businesses, to provide working capital and commercial real estate loans to existing and potential hotel partners across the US. The hotel chain said that the deal would enable it to provide easier finance access to the partnered hotels to ramp up their design, hospitality and customer service.
“In US we are opening 1.5 buildings every day and hence US has become the fastest-growing market for us globally. We have footprints across 60 cities including like Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Seattle, and Miami within the short span of a few months. OYO has definite plans to soon expand its presence to cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco,” OYO told this newspaper in an e-mailed response.
The hotel aggregator added that a franchise agreement with casino Las Vegas to run hooters restaurant and hotel has turned into a key attraction for customers including travellers and residents in Las Vegas.