OYO Uses Data Science To Address The Dynamic Travel Needs Of Consumers

Online hotel aggregator OYO is now using data science - both qualitative and quantitative - to study consumer behavior patterns and address the dynamic needs of the travellers as well as drive internal business efficiencies. The company's data science team constantly gathers insights and feedback to make the OYO experience more personalised and consumer-centric.

"Our data scientists use natural curiosity and innovative tools to derive deep insights into customer behavior. These insights not only help us improve our service but also take effective business decisions," said Ritesh Agarwal, founder & CEO of OYO.

In a recent exploration exercise, OYO plotted the normalised geo-locations of 2 million booking sources on a platform known as 'OYO Red Map' which indicated that people from all over India are booking OYO rooms.

The map revealed that more and more hotel bookings are happening during transit, and between 4-6 hours prior to check-in. Indeed, 28 per cent of the travellers book an OYO room upon reaching their destination city. It also indicated that its on-demand feature with the promise of being "available, predictable, affordable" has resulted in an "unprecedented" growth with an OYO room being booked every three seconds.

Some of the other findings include - OYO increasingly being used for long stays (183 days in a row), business traveller being the top driver for hotel demand (36 per cent), and about 36 per cent of the booking being driven by couples.

Founded in 2013 in Gurgaon, the OYO network consists of over 65,000 rooms across 7,000 hotels in India. It is funded by leading global investors including the SoftBank Group, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed India.