Online marketplace for budget travellers, Stayzilla.com, run by Chennai-based Inasra Technologies, expects ₹1,000 crore in revenue by March 2016. The company, founded in 2010 by Yogendra Vasupal, Sachit Singhi and Rupal Yogendra, expects that 60 per cent of the overall gross sales will come from dormitories, hostels, guest houses, villas and homestays in tier 3, 4 and 4 towns, where there are no major hotel chains.
Yogendra Vasupal, Founder and CEO, Stayzilla, said that at present over 40 per cent of the bookings/sales are coming from such alternate stays, up from a mere 5 per cent last year. “People are travelling more often and to unconventional places, where it is not easy to find a good hotel,.”
On the Stayzilla platform, there are over 26,000 properties from 4,000 towns. Stayzilla expects to cover 8,000 towns with over 35,000 alternate stays by March 2016.
Vasupal believes that the alternate stay is highly fragmented and needs to be made organised so as to boost domestic tourism and economy. “We are also trying to create micro entrepreneurs in these small towns. For instance, a person can list his extra house or room on Stayzilla and make money out of it.”
Stayzilla has witnessed a seven-fold growth last year. It charges an average of 15-20 per cent commission on every transaction. According to Vasupal, alternate stays has a huge opportunity in India. Citing a report, Vasupal said that in 2011, about 1.5 billion Indians people made overnight domestic trips.
However, only 300 million rooms were paid for during that period. This means the remaining were obligatory stays because of lack of options or less supply of budget rooms. “So we thought alternate stay was the future as no branded hotel will be able to cover so many towns and provide rooms below ₹2,000.”
He also said that Stayzilla, being an aggregator of rooms, has the edge over other online travel aggregators such as Makemytrip or Yatra, as they have not been able to cover smaller towns due to lack of hotels.
ExpansionStayzilla is focusing on expanding its reach and being present in each and every ‘zilla’ (district). The company has raised $20 million from Nexus Venture Partners and Matrix Partners.