IRCTC-OYO partnership to offer 45,000 hotel rooms across 170 cities

Continuing its streak of partnering with innovative start-up ventures, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has tied up with OYO Rooms to offer standardized accommodation and a convenient booking platform to rail travelers.

The partnership with India's largest branded network of hotels symbolizes the growing leverage of synergies between the government and homegrown Indian businesses to drive the next wave of innovation.

OYO Rooms will power the IRCTC hotel-booking page, offering their inventory and promise of standardized amenities to train passengers.

Commenting on the tie up, IRCTC CMD Dr. A.K. Manocha said: "We are committed to drive efficiencies and enhance our service through innovation. OYO Rooms has propelled the hotel market in India towards new horizon and pioneered the standardization of affordable hotel-rooms. This partnership contributes another chapter to the successful narrative of "Make in India" initiatives and how tech-enabled solutions will power the next wave of innovation."

He said IRCTC has made the necessary technology integrations. "We will be actively communicating about this newly available option through e-mailers, information on e-tickets so that our travelers can explore and utilize these services."

Abhinav Sinha, COO, OYO Rooms, said: "We are honoured and delighted to power the hotels-booking engine of IRCTC and serve Indian railway passengers. With this tie-up, IRCTC customers will have ready access to OYO's inventory of predictable, standardized and affordable hotel accommodation across 170 cities in India. As India's widest and largest network, we feel confident of catering to the passengers' needs and look forward to making this alliance a great success."

He further added that OYO Rooms was conceived with a vision to change the way travelers view out-of-home stay. Our aim is to deliver home-like comforts at affordable price-points so that wherever you may be travelling to, you would want to stay at an OYO booked through IRCTC-OYO network.

"Also, the first step towards fulfilling this mandate was to expand our footprint to provide the comfort of a wide network. We are now focusing on enhancing guest experience, making our processes more robust and utilizing technology to deliver greater efficiency to business and partners," Sinha added.

IRCTC-OYO Rooms will offer nearly 45,000 hotel rooms in over 170 cities in India. The IRCTC portal witnesses five to 5.5 lakhs bookings per day on an average. Also, OYO Rooms recently crossed one million check-ins across its network.

OYO Rooms has successfully disrupted the legacy driven business of Indian hospitality sector, creating a sizeable and new market opportunity. It promises comfortable and delightful stays with assured amenities such as an air-conditioned room, complimentary breakfast and Wi-Fi with 24x7 customer service support.

The vision behind IRCTC-OYO partnership is to become the most preferred and trusted hotel brand and to create reliable and affordable Hotel network for Railways Passengers. OYO is backed by the world's leading investors including the SoftBank Group, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed India.