Stayzilla to rope in branded hotel chains

Room aggregator Stayzilla.com is planning to graduate from listing unorganised standalone properties to branded hotel chains as it seeks to make its site a global platform for online accommodation booking.

Its end-to-end market place currently comprises home stays, guest houses, service apartments and three-star properties in the budget segment but this would change as it seeks to get better margins from five-star branded properties of big players like Indian Hotels.

“Today, we are not there with the big branded chains like the Taj and Oberoi Group. But we are looking at bringing in technology to integrate them into our site. Very soon we will be in the premium branded space in the accommodation segment,’’ stated Sachit Singhi, Co-Founder, Stayzilla.

With average room rates between ₹1,000 and ₹1,500 per night, Stayzilla, the aggregator for budget properties is expected to scale up with more branded chains and hotels on its site.

“Right now, we are simply adding value to the ecosystem with players who do not have access to e-commerce in the accommodation space.

“But we have to experiment to make these properties global and also bring in branded chains into our site.

“The accommodation segment is about $40 billion equally divided between branded and unbranded properties,” added Singhi.

Besides there are also plans to launch Stayzilla to neighbouring countries in South-East Asia and Africa.

“There is ground work going on to take our market place offering to neighbouring markets which are underserved in this category. Most of the sites in such markets serve as ticketing platforms and booking reservation for hotels.

“Since we are in the stay side of travel, it gives us a chance to personalise our services and take this Indian concept from here to neighbouring countries,’’ said Singhi.

Currently, Stayzilla has 30,000 properties registered on its site catering to 4,000 towns.

However, making money is still a long haul for the accommodation start-up.

“At this point of our life cycle, we have chosen growth over profitability with $20 million funding from investors. Our revenues come from the commission we get by managing the back-end functions of hotel properties. This year revenues should touch upwards of ₹500 crore,’’ added Singhi.

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