Branded budget hotel chain aggregator OYO plans to hire over 2,000 technology experts and engineers by 2020 as the company continues to expand its network globally. The company has entered markets such as China, Nepal and the UK recently and is also in the process of expanding in the South East Asian markets.

The Softbank and Sequoia-Backed digital hotel chain on Friday launched a tech-conference, first of its kind in the hospitality sector, to bring out innovative digital products and applications to automate its hotel partners, customers and the entire ecosystem.

Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, OYO, said, “At OYO, we currently have 700 technology experts and engineers who have developed over 20 in-house products helping over 10,000 asset partners globally and making them better hospitality players. With another 2020 experts joining us by 2020, we will continue to invest in technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and IoT that will make curated guest experiences at every price point a reality, while ensuring sustainable income for partners and livelihood opportunities for several Indians. Through these efforts, we are glad to partner with the government in its goal of creating millions of economic opportunities, thereby powering the country’s growth to a $5-trillion economy by 2025.”

The company CTO, Anil Goel, further added that idea is to expand and strengthen the count of OYOpreneurs in its technology unit by 2020 and transform India’s and global hospitality experience and technology by not being just an enabler but also a driver of hassle-free and quality experience for travellers and our asset partners.

“We continue to invest heavily in talent and next-gen technologies like IoT, AI, machine learning while building a team that faces issues plaguing the archaic infrastructure of traditional hospitality heads on,” he added.

Even as OYO continues to build tech products that will help improve its customer experience and also help boost sales for its hotel partners, recently an American travel blogger, Jordan Taylor, going by the YouTube channel called Travel Light, shared a “horrifying” experience of her stay in one of OYO’s hotel partners in New Delhi. In the video blog, Taylor recounts how she had had to stay locked in the OYO hotel for two days without food or water as a hotel staff constantly stood outside of the room waiting for her to come out.

While OYO has delisted the hotel partner from its site, it is important to understand how digital companies such as OYO solve these issues with the help of technology.

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