OYO has recently revealed its plan to introduce 50 properties in Ayodhya by 2023, consisting of 25 homestays managed by homeowners and 25 small to medium hotels, each with 10 to 20 rooms. The Ayodhya Development Authority and Uttar Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation are extending active support to OYO Rooms to ensure the timely establishment of these properties
OYO data from January to September 2022 reveals that revenue of hotels onboarded on OYO platform doubled within three months compared to independent budget hotels of a similar size. OYO 360, a self onboarding tool, provides a simple two-click platform to enroll hotel owners on its platform and provides three types of benefits – growth benefits, partnership benefits, and OYO network benefits.
Tourist arrivals in Ayodhya have been on the rise consistently over the last few years as the city infrastructure is getting rejuvenated and highway and road access improves. In 2017 approximately 1.5 crore tourists visited Ayodhya, and 2 crores in 2019. The number dipped during the pandemic years but rebounded again in 2022 when more than 2.20 crore tourists visited the spiritual city. The government expects that Ayodhya tourism will increase ten times by 2024 once the construction and development work of Ram temple is completed. It is spending approximately Rs 30,000 crore for the transformation of Ayodhya and making it a spiritual centre with a global appeal like the Vatican City and Mecca.
The action plan has been divided into eight categories – accessibility, aesthetics, cleanliness, culture, efficiency, experimentation, health and modernisation.
It includes the construction of an international airport, a riverfront and the development of a theme park based on the Ramayana, smart transportation, waste management, a bird sanctuary and public safety systems under smart city mission. The Uttar Pradesh government is also working towards the preservation and restoration of heritage sites in Ayodhya. This includes the restoration of the Ram Katha Park, which is a major pilgrimage site, and the development of a Ramayana Museum.
OYO is betting big on religious corridors like Ayodhya to boost its expansion plans in India in 2023. OYO’s Cultural Travel 2022 Round-up Report highlighted that spiritual travel is a key contributor to the domestic travel recovery in India. With rising interest in community experiences across India, a lot of travellers are now looking to explore rich cultural destinations, lesser-known locations, royal palaces and spiritual or wellness destinations. A zone-wise breakdown of spiritual tourism in India indicates North India as the most favoured spiritual destination followed by South, West and East regions.
A recent instance of this interest in spiritual travel is the Good Friday long weekend, where OYO’s booking trends revealed that Varanasi emerged as the top choice among pilgrimage destinations, followed by Puri, Shirdi, Amritsar, and Haridwar. Alongside these cities, Tirupati, Mathura, Vrindavan, Guruvayur, and Madurai also saw a significant surge in booking demand.
Customers choose OYO’s platform for many reasons, including accessibility to OYO’s hotels at competitive prices, quality accommodation,ease of use of its app, personalization, and flexibility of the OYO platform. Customers can also resolve their queries quickly with OYO’s 24*7 chatbot – Yo! Chat.
Customers can do hotel bookings through a simple three click booking process on OYO Hotels app. OYO Rooms has around 50% the same city bookings through its ‘hotels near me’ feature. Outstation bookings score high for Goa hotels among beach destinations, Jaipur hotels and Udaipur hotels for heritage tourism.
Same city bookings are high for hotels in Delhi and hotels in Chandigarh in North India, hotels in Mumbai in West and hotels in Bangalore followed by hotels in Hyderabad in South India.
Sharing more details on the expansion plans in Ayodhya, Anuj Tejpal, Chief Merchant Officer, OYO said “We have made a robust expansion plan for Ayodhya after multiple rounds of meetings with the government to understand their key requirements and concerns. We are enthused by the swift action and encouragement provided by the Ayodhya Development Authority & UP Tourism Department. They are highly keen that we encourage the opening of well-run homestays to provide an additional source of income for the local residents. We have started onboarding homestays already. Ayodhya is the top spiritual city in our plans of expanding OYO footprints across major religious corridors in India”.
The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data says that the temple economy in India is booming. It is worth Rs 3.02 lakh crore and 2.32 percent of GDP. The NSSO figures suggest that 55 percent of Hindus undertake religious pilgrimages patronizing mid and small sized hotels. The report also says that more than 36 percent Muslims, 35 percent Christians, and 72 per cent Sikhs are likely to undertake religious tourism from 2022 to 2027. The report concludes that Indians do more pilgrimage than business trips and spend more on pilgrimage than travelling for education purposes.
