JOIN USA couple from Chennai has made something possible from impossible. Now, they have made stay affordable and pleasant in tier 1 and tier 2 cities and some of them are in remote areas. It was difficult for tourists to get a good lodging in remote areas till Yogendra Vasupal aka (Yogi) and Rupal Surana, the founder couple of Stayzilla, started the company with their friend Sachit Singhi in 2005.
Now Stayzilla offers access to more than 9 lakh rooms across all stay segments and its alternative stay service is spread across 40,000 properties throughout the country. The 9 lakh rooms are in different forms, including home stays, lodges, boat houses, hotels and jungle houses. The company is not only involved in booking hotel rooms but also for renting unused rooms of any residence for Stayzilla customers.
“Our focus is to give great alternative stay options to travellers. The mobile application will cater to customers looking for differentiated and unique stay experiences,” Yogi said. The idea of giving alternative stay service came to Yogi as the country faces shortage of rooms for tourists and travellers.
He said: “Our 'concierge' feature is a step towards acquiring new vendors and hand holding the travellers. Concierge helps customers (travellers and tourists) through all aspects of the stay life cycle experience post online booking,” he said.
With highly trained people, established processes and technology aspects at work, Stayzilla offers a unique customer experience in addition to driving incremental volumes for homestays and small stay properties alike. The company also ensures a simplified experience even in the small hotels and towns.
Stayzilla is the brainchild of Yogi, who dropped out of an engineering college to start a career at the age of 19 by undertaking freelancing projects to develop web-based applications and e-commerce portals. As his tryst with e-commerce grew deeper, he developed a vision to launch an e-commerce portal of his own. That vision grew into the inception of an online portal for hotel accommodation anywhere in India known as Stayzilla.
Yogi's wife Rupal Surana said: “In the early 2000 we were engaged in real estate and other online sales business. However, after noticing that demand for budget rooms was very high, we started providing affordable stay in 2005. Now we have further transitioned into creating a new category of stay options in India”. “Since the sector was unorganised, we had to do a lot of homework to streamline our venture,” she said.
“We launched a mobile app for room bookings just three months back. Already, it has been downloaded by more than 3 lakh users,” Rupal said, adding that her company's 30 per cent business was through mobile only. “We also have set a target of getting five lakh rooms in our network in the next couple of years,” Yogi said.
Explaining about the easy way to book rooms, he said a customer looking for a room can select the location with the help of GPS integration or searching a particular area of a city or any district. Traveller has to go to the check-in and check-out dates menu and search for preferable properties. It enables the guest to apply filters as per their preferences which narrow down the search according to their choice.
The main feature of the menu would be “money back guarantee" which develops more trust as the customer can also opt for the money back scheme if they find the property does not match with what was promised. The condition is that it has to be invoked after the guest reaches the property and post check-in, they can call the Stayzilla and proceed.
Unique experience
According to Rupal, Stayzilla's mobile application will provide services to both homeowners and tourists looking for differentiated and unique stay experiences. “The mobile application also extends services to room owners to choose guests based on various options such as common interests, educational and professional backgrounds, food preferences and offbeat hobbies,” she said adding “therefore, both room owners and guests will have a good experience.”
She claimed: “We've been in the travel business long enough to know the kind of glitches that might arise even if you have your trip all-planned out. That's why, Stayzilla concierge ensures your entire life cycle of events post the online booking phase are made as hassle-free as possible.”
A software engineer by qualification, Rupal worked in the IT industry for a few months before stepping into the decision-making shoes at Stayzilla as the VP Operations. She handles the day-to-day operations like customer service and payment processing. “Initially, I would approach hotels across the country along with my team to persuade them to promote their property through Stayzilla which is a great achievement considering our low profile status,” Rupal said.
Supporting in financial aspects, Sachit Singhi, Director-Partnerships & Co-founder, takes care of Supplier Relations, Business Development (Marketing and partnerships on demand side-online portals, travel agents, Corporates and Finance).
Stayzilla, a hybrid marketplace for all kinds of stays, is further working to expand its network to have tie-ups with hotel chains such as Ginger, Lemon Tree, Treebo, Zo Rooms and Zip on the platform in another 12 to 18 months. The company also follows a model similar to US-based AirBnB for its alternative stay segment.
A recent survey said tourism in India contributes about 7 per cent of the GDP and is the third largest foreign exchange earner for the country. The tourism and hospitality sectors direct contribution to GDP is about $ 44 billion in 2015 and is rising annually at 11 per cent since 2006.
The direct share of travel and tourism to GDP is expected to grow more than 7 per cent per year to $ 87 billion, which is about three per cent of GDP, in 10 years.