Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, Oyo Rooms, is looking forward to using Airbnb as a platform to sell room inventory.

The largest and highest funded room aggregator, however, cannot use its brand, while listing on the platform.

Others such as Treebo Hotels and Vista Rooms is already using Airbnb to liquidate inventory as it increases its offerings with hotels being the latest segment to get added to its range of home stay options in the country.

Today, branded room aggregators are increasingly resorting to Airbnb as a distribution platform to sell their respective inventory.

“We are evaluating opportunities with Airbnb but it is up to them to allow us to use our brand. Today, 96 per cent of our bookings come from our own channel and about 4 per cent from external OTAs and with Airbnb, it would serve as an additional distribution channel for us,’’ says Ritesh Agarwal.

Treebo Hotels, which has about 400 hotels under its brand, is also ready to list its inventory without using its brand on Airbnb. “Since Airbnb has recently started listing hotels on its platform, we are ready to sell our hotels through it. Today, we compete with the likes of Oyo Rooms who also intend using the Airbnb platform,’’ says Sidharth Gupta, Co-Founder, Treebo, a tech-enabled budget hotel aggregator.

Vista Rooms, with 100 properties, has already been listing on the Airbnb site without any visibility for its brand. “Since our curated supplies already offer security and quality assurance, platforms like Airbnb are more than willing to offer our room inventory. Currently, we have 10-15 per cent of our sales coming from this platform but we cannot use our brand since Airbnb rules do not allow it, ’’ says Ankita Sheth, Co-Founder Vista Rooms.

Hotel technology and travel distribution solution provider, Axis Rooms, is already helping Airbnb integrate its platform to incorporate Oyo Rooms and Treebo Hotels.

Anil Kumar Prasanna, CEO, AxisRooms, said: “Airbnb is emerging as a large global sales channel for all accommodation including such branded room aggregators. They usually sell partial amount of inventory and is different from selling through the traditional OTA(Online travel agents). In Airbnb, every room is a separate listing but in traditional OTA’s, hotels is one listing and rooms come under that. Besides, there is a lot more detailing done on the accommodation in the case of Airbnb.’’

AxisRooms is the connected channel manager for Airbnb and manages listing, price and inventory for branded room players like Treebo Hotels and Oyo Rooms, who are being listed on its platform.

Industry observers claim that Airbnb is already threatening to become larger than any hotel company in the next decade considering it has been adding new types of accommodation categories.

Amanpreet Bajaj, Country Manager, Airbnb-India, added: “Airbnb has always evolved as a platform. What started as a way to share airbeds evolved to private rooms and then entire spaces. In more recent years, we’ve seen dedicated vacation rentals, B&Bs and boutique hotels join the platform organically. With over 30,000 listings in the country, Airbnb listings in India have grown by 115 per cent over the past year. Also, there has been almost 2x growth in the number of nights booked on Airbnb in India since 2016.’’

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