OYO utilises AI and machine learning to improve customer experience and operations
Oravel Stays Pvt. Ltd, which has over 8,500 properties affiliated to it under the Oyo hotel brand, is increasing its technology capability to keep up with its domestic and international expansion plans.
These expansion plans call for a bigger tech team as explained by Anil Goel, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of OYO.
Anil also has plans to set up a centre of excellence focused on machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and other newer technologies that play a significant role in improving customer experience and operations.
In addition, Oyo primarily follows an in-house software development strategy for running the core business—ensuring the hotels run smoothly via the Oyo network.
“At the intersection of real estate, hospitality and technology, tech is central to everything we do at Oyo. We have 20-plus technology products for each aspect of our business”, said Anil.
Furthermore, a property management solution (PMS) from Oyo provides the hotel chain control of all operations which includes check-in, check-out, guest issues, and guest-ordering services such as food and beverages.
Besides that, Orbis is another app which is for their business development managers. “It guides them on the demand patterns on the network and helps them identify target properties in different areas. Thus, it enables them to negotiate with and onboard those properties,” added Anil.
Oyo Malaysia’s Country Head Tan Ming Luk said, “The app is equipped with multiple features including route planning, meeting management, deal prediction and learning and quiz sections to continuously disseminate knowledge and upgrade the skills of our business development managers.”
Oyo chose a cloud computing model to host its applications to manage a diverse set of hotel owners and operations in 230 cities across India, Malaysia and Nepal. Consequently, it saves on capital and allows it to be more agile.
“Oyo is 100% on cloud and our entire infrastructure is on AWS (Amazon Web Services) across multiple availability zones,” said Anil. He added that the company works closely with its affiliates and property owners, involving them in product development and integrate their feedback in new app features.
According to Anil, big data analytics is one of the foundations for Oyo to better understand customer behaviour through the hundreds of gigabytes of data. This helps the OYO team to understand demand patterns and maximize the occupancy rate in hotels by implementing dynamic pricing.
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