SERVICE MARKETING

PROJECT REPORT ON HOMESTAY

AGGREGATOR

Submitted By Roll Number

Atul Palve

Hrishikesh Patil

Jayant Patil

Sumit Patil

Snehesh Patil

MMS-II (MARKETING)
VIDYALANKAR INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY
2016-18
Contents
1. Overview: ........................................................................................................... 2
1.1 Industry Overview: ................................................................................ 2
1.2 Key Players: .............................................................................................. 2
2. Balancing demand and productive capacity:.................................. 5
2.1 Overview:....................................................................................................... 5
2.2 The Big Three Determinants of Local Demand: ............................ 5
2.3 Addressing Problem of Fluctuating Demand: ............................... 5
3. Managing Service Quality and Productivity ................................... 5
3.1 Service Quality ............................................................................................ 5
3.2 Productivity .................................................................................................. 6
3.3 Comparing Service Quality and Productivity of AirBnB,
Goibibo and OYO .............................................................................................. 6
4. Complaint management and service recovery .............................. 7
5. 7 P’s of Marketing ......................................................................................... 8
5.1 Company Name: Oyo Rooms ............................................................... 8
5.2 Company Name: GoIbibo .................................................................... 10
5.3 Company Name:Airbnb ........................................................................ 11
6. Service leadership and Innovation .......................................................... 12
6.1. Service Innovations ............................................................................... 12

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1.Overview:
Homestay is a popular form of hospitality and lodging whereby visitors stay in
a house or apartment of a local of the city to which they are traveling. Homestay,
a niche item in India’s domestic holiday itinerary until a decade ago, has
become a warm alternative to cold hotel lobbies for travelers. Home stay
tourism is an emerging tourism concept evolved lately in the tourism world.
India can be a model homestay for its multi-faceted potentialities.
1.1 Industry Overview:
The total tourist visits in India have been growing at a steady rate of about 16
per cent over the past five years. The travel and tourism sector in India
provides significant socio-economic benefits. The direct contribution to GDP is
estimated at INR 2222 billion in 2013, the total contribution is estimated at INR
7416 billion in the same year. These have further been forecasted to rise at a
growth rate of 12 per cent over the next decade. While the sector supported
25 million direct and 40 million total jobs in 2012, these have been forecasted
to increase at a growth rate of 2.1 per cent by 2023.
A report by online travel community HolidayIQ showed there were 2,281
registered homestays in India in 2016 compared to 17 in 2004 recording more
than 130-fold increase. Majority of holidaymakers picking homestays were
families (49%) followed by groups (20%), singles (16%) and couples (14%).
The report added that almost one in two families (49%) preferred homestays
as their choice of accommodation. One of the reasons for the popularity was
that 55% homestays were priced within Rs2,000 per night, the report added.
Properties priced between Rs2,000 and Rs5,000 accounted for 42%
homestays.
1.2 Key Players:
(a) OYO Rooms
Oyo room is India's largest branded network of hotels founded by Ritesh
Agarwal in May 2013.It operates more than 200 cities in India. First in Class
app based hotel booking on the go. Has its Headquartered in Gurgaon
Haryana. First started by the name of Oravel Stays Pvt Limited In march 2015
raised $25 million from Lightspeed, Sequoia and in July 2015 raised $100
million from SoftBank
(b) Goibibo
Goibibo.com was developed and launched by ibibo Group in 2009.The
platform enables travelers to search, compare and buy from across categories
and width of travel suppliers for air tickets, hotels, and bus tickets. Goibibo can
be accessed via mobile app and is available on iOS, Android and Windows.
Goibibo is the largest online hotels booking engine in India and also one of the
leading air aggregator. Goibibo is also the number one ranked mobile app
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under the travel category. The first phase of the Indian ecommerce journey
clearly belonged to the Online Travel Aggregators (OTAs). Players like
Makemytrip, Yatra and Cleartrip dominated the early days of ecommerce in
India. Goibibo has grown its hotels booking volumes by 5x in 2015 over the
previous year. 70% of hotel bookings take place on Goibibo's mobile app.
(c) Airbnb
Airbnb was founded in August 2008, headquartered in San Francisco, CA, and
is privately owned by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk, and
Laurence Tosi. It is a website for people to list, find, and rent lodging. It has
over 1,500,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 190 countries. Since then it has
served over 30 million guests. Such platforms disrupt traditional hospitality
industries by creating new sources of supply. Airbnb’s business model includes
minimal regulatory controls in most locations where hosts and guests both
have to build trust to maximize the likelihood of a successful bookingThe online
hotel segment has the potential to generate about $2.3 billion in gross bookings
by 2020 for online travel agents (OTAs) such as MakeMyTrip Ltd, Yatra.com
and Cleartrip.com, a report by Deutsche Bank AG.
According to the report, gross hotel bookings, which stood at $7.2 billion in
2016, are poised to grow to $10.9 billion by 2020, while the percentage of
bookings made online will increase to 28% from 19% currently. As much as
78% of the overall online hotel bookings will be routed through OTAs, throwing
up a $2.3 billion opportunity for such businesses.

Market Share in OTC

7%
9%
32%

24%

28%

MakeMyTrip GoIbibo IRCTC Cleartrip Yatra

Fig.1:Market Share of top Companies in Online Travel Agency Segment

According to an investor presentation by MakeMyTrip in April, the firm’s air

ticketing transactions grew 28% and tours and hotel bookings by 126% in
2015-16. Net revenue in the air ticketing grew 14% while that from tours and

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hotels business rose 45%. Similarly, for Yatra.com, hotels and packages grew
at a faster clip – a CAGR of 19% during the corresponding period, the report
said.
Currently, MakeMyTrip and GoIbibo have emerged as market leaders in the
online travel category, capturing 31% and 27.4% market share, respectively,
as on July 2017, as per a research report by Kalagato. Homegrown ticket
booking platform IRCTC followed in the third spot with 22.9% market share on
the back of app installations. Cleartrip and Yatra were fourth and fifth,
respectively, with 9.6% and 7.3% market share. MakeMyTrip acquired GoIbibo
in an all-stock deal, which was cleared in January.
Traditionally, MakeMyTrip has been a strong player in the flight booking space
and GoIbibo has been leading the hotel-booking space. With both joining
forces, the merged entity gets a sizeable chunk of the market at 58%.
Yatra.com, which has a 16% market share. The likes of Cleartrip and Expedia
are significantly lagging, with 7% and 5% market share, respectively. Airbnb
have 1.11% market share in india having 22000 rooms in india.
Both MakeMyTrip and Yatra, however, faces stiff competition in the hotels
segment from an accommodation start-up such as Oyo, Treebo and
Fabhotels among others, that have been steadily increased their presence in
smaller towns.

Market Share of HSA

7%
5%
GoIbibo & MMT
14% Yatra
Cleartrip

58% Expedia
16% OYO

Fig.2:Market Share of top Companies in Homestay Agrregator Segment

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2.Balancing demand and productive capacity:
2.1 Overview:
22,000 homes (in India for Airbnb) out of about 3 million (homes globally) is
less than 1%. On both sides, supply and demand, it is nascent and emerging,
and not huge. (But) about 10 years from now, (India) will be one of the biggest
markets for Airbnb. The India travel market will be one of the largest travel and
tourism economies in the world. The first reason is that this is a country of more
than 1.2 billion people with a huge emerging middleclass. They are going to
spend a lot of money on travel and they are going to be living in a more
experience-based economy. They want to consume experiences, not just
physical goods.
2.2 The Big Three Determinants Of Local Demand:
Seasonality-The demand for Airbnb units is not constant throughout the year
and in almost all markets, there will be a high and low season
Day of the Week-mostly business travelers, you may actually see higher
demand for spaces during the week days instead of the weekends
Special Events-sharp jumps in demand throughout their year–these are
typically special events like big conventions happening in town that push
demand up for a short period of time.
2.3 Addressing Problem Of Fluctuating Demand:
Two basic approaches are as follows:
a. Adjust the level of capacity to meet demand-
 Airbnb is sharing economy model, enabling people to lease or rent short-
term lodging including vacation rentals, apartment rentals, homestays, hostel
beds, or hotel rooms.
 Availability of room increases by increasing the host - Enables owners to list
their space on the platform and earn rental money.
b. Manage the level of demand-
 Special offer
 Providing waiting status
 Demand based pricing

3. Managing Service Quality and Productivity

3.1 Service Quality
Tangible Showing real and high-quality images of rooms or homes on
websites

Reliability Dependable and accurate performance, Website or application

updating periodically

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 Responsiveness Helpfulness i.e. providing 24/7 customer service with skilled
employees

Assurance Assuring security of customer’s information, assuring credibility of

the company by giving outputs or providing service

Empathy Easy to access with good communication which customer can

relate and understand

3.2 Productivity

 Customer base can be increased through providing Quality service

 Providing enhancing services or rooms and homes with extra facilities
 Different affordable pricing of rooms or homes as per customer’s
preference
 Travel time is decreased by providing nearest rooms or locations
 Checklist is maintained for basic safety checks
 Customers are able to track the locations of the homes

3.3 Comparing Service Quality And Productivity Of Airbnb, Goibibo And Oyo

Quality Productivity

AirBnB  24/7 customer support  People travel like local in a new

 Secured customer’s information
 Showing real and high-quality images of
Homes
 Easy to access and booking
 Catering to middle and upper middle-
class people
Goibibo  24/7 customer support
 Different products such as:
1. Flight schedules
2. Bus booking
3. Trains and car bookings
 Attractive and updated mobile app
OYO  24/7 customer support
 Standardized, Affordable
Technology driven
 hassle-free stay experiences
 Free facilities like Wi-Fi, Breakfast, AC businesses, For Hill stations etc.
rooms etc.
place
Catering to nearly 165 countries
 providing reference travel books
prepared by local residents
 Delivery of the fastest and the
most trusted user experiences
 70% of hotel bookings take place
on mobile app
 Grown its hotels booking
volumes by 5x
 Giving offers after signup of Rs
2000

 6500+ hotels offering
and Catering to nearly 198 cities of
India
 OYO for Holiday packages, For

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 4.Complaint management and service recovery
Service Research Technique used is Complaint solicitation which involves
Actively seeking and acting on customer complaints. Consumer complaints
provide firms with the opportunity to recover from their mistakes, and to retain
dissatisfied consumers. Efforts which facilitate the solicitation of complaints
may not only be used as immediate means of protecting market share, but may
also prove to be highly profitable measures in the long run. However, significant
variations in the degree of complaint solicitation exercised by companies can
be observed in the marketplace. While certain firms seem to actively pursue
consumer complaints, others tend to avoid or ignore them. Such a variation
may have much to do with the market conditions facing the firm, and existing
research has not conducted a systematic examination of their effects.
Benefits
• Feedback straight from the Customer
• Clear identification of the problem facilitating quick resolution

Sr No Steps Process/Action Taken

1 Acknowledge receipt of Airbnb provides a complaint reference number and

the complaint further point of contact to customer.

2 Accurately record Airbnb records customers interaction call and make it

complaint information accessible to every department

3 Timeframes for resolution Airbnb always attempt to resolve complaints on first

of complaint contact and if that is not possible they ask for 7 days
period to resolve the problem
4 Delays in resolving a As soon as Airbnb realizes that they will not be able to
complaint resolve a complaint within the given timeframe, they
contact the customer and inform him/ her of the delay
and set a new timeline
5 Training about complaint Airbnb provides unique training to their employees for
handling procedures complaint management

Airbnb:

• Customer Care No: 000-800-4405-103 (Usually takes 7 to 15 mins to

answer)
• Airbnb Email: Social media (Twitter)
• Airbnb India is not approachable to customer complaints which leads to
countless unfulfilled customer.
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• Some unsatisfied customer complaints to Indian Consumer Complaints
Forum
Oyo Rooms:

• Customer care No: +91 9313931393 (Usually takes 2 to 3 mins to answer)

• Oyo Rooms: Complaints Directly through app
• Social media(Twitter): Quick Response
Goibibo:

• Customer care no: 1800 208 1060

• Chat or talk with customer care: 24x7 go Care Support
• Social media support (Twitter)
• Easy Direct complaint to management

5. 7 P’s of Marketing
Fundamentals of offline business can be replicated for online business as well.
Often online business team has limited interactions with the customers (plus
no F2F interaction) therefore it is imperative that team creates opportunities for
overwhelming experiences for their customer and set high standards of
performance. All a team needs to do is carefully interact with all the elements
of marketing strategy and implement it wise.

Fig.3: Block Diagram showing E-Marketing Mix for HSA

5.1 Company Name: Oyo Rooms

5.1. (A) Product:

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Oyo Rooms is one of the most popular hotel booking online brands in India.
Oyo works on a different scale in comparison to other online room booking
sites or online travel agents. Oyo Rooms work methodology is simple that they
pitch the hotels available in different location to the customers and on booking
they take a commission fee as their income. Many times, they also do one
thing that they book a few rooms of a hotel every month according to consumer
request and then they even rent these rooms to consumers at a lower rate at
which they themselves has taken from the hotel. This deal attracts consumers
and make their trip way more comfortable at a low cost. Their service of giving
rooms to unmarried couples without any hassle also attracts youngsters to a
big deal. It takes only 5-6 days for Oyo to make up a deal with a hotel after
analyzing all of their services. As a comfortable service is one of their prime
motto so Oyo Rooms have also made up a special team which keep on visiting
hotels in a fixed duration to make sure that all the services are available as
stated. This gives an insight in the product & service offering in its marketing
mix.
5.1. (B) Price:
Oyo Room’s strategy is to attract customers with a lower room price in
comparison to the base price of the hotel. The main goal is to offer at an
unmatched price and which matches with the budget of user. Their room price
varies from Rs. 999 to Rs. 4000 depending on the location and luxury of hotel.
Due to this discount strategy many a times Oyo turns out to be at a major loss
which is then backed by different investors like Softbank group. Overall Oyo
rooms are following a very sensible strategy which aims to provide rooms at a
moderate rate with awesome services and generate loyalty from customers.
5.1. (C) Place:
Oyo rooms started from a single hotel in Gurgaon and now has extended its
empire in all the parts of country along with going beyond the seas in Malaysia
and Nepal. Oyo rooms works totally online, either with an app or through online
sites you can go through the available hotels with their estimated price. You
can book it online with a confirmation and then you can avail the services on
reaching the booked hotel on specific date. So Oyo’s total delivery system is
online whether it is booking, complaint or feedback and its online system is
totally user friendly.
5.1. (D) PROMOTION:
Oyo prefers to promote completely through different social media sites like
Facebook, Twitter etc. Oyo uses digital platform to attract new customers with
its unique services and lower prices. Also retain loyal customers by coming up
with new discount policies further on the low prices. Oyo has also conducted
various online campaigns like #Aurkyachaiye which we can see on different
other social media sites. Many of these campaigns also included Bollywood
artist to make them appear more attractive. One of the most recent campaign
is “One for everyone” which comprises of short 8 movies where customers are
showing their own satisfaction with Oyo services.
Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it
the 7Ps marketing mix of Oyo Rooms.
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5.1. (e) PEOPLE:
Oyo team comprises of young and energetic people who wants to deliver
maximum both for the company and individual growth. With the dynamic team
Oyo also provides a very friendly working environment which helps in the
employees work according to their convenience, come up with new innovations
and work beyond their strengths. Even the leaders of Oyo are two youngsters
who were driven by the need to create a change in the hospitability industry of
India.
5.1. (F) PROCESS:
Oyo helps the users to search the hotels according to the location and price. It
acts as an intermediate between the hotels and the users and on booking
collect their commission fees as their income. The services provided by the
hotel is not in the hands of Oyo but they help users in picking hotels according
to their convenience.
5.1. (G) PHYSICAL EVIDENCE:
Oyo provides a confirmation mail to the users registered email id on booking
any room and also send them a confirmation message on their mobile number
which ensures their payment and booking of hotel. This message or email is
used to show your room confirmation while check in the respective hotel.
Hence, this completes the marketing mix of Oyo Rooms.
5.2 Company Name: Goibibo
5.2. (a). Product

Goibibo is a leading travel aggregator whose business transactions are

performed online. It is a B2C or business to customer organisation as it likes
to deal directly with its customers by providing best transportation and
accommodation facilities.

It is the largest booking engine and has been ranked at first position in travel
sector through mobile apps. Goibibo offers trusted and fastest experiences to
its users in terms of searching the required product, making bookings, making
payments, options of cancellation, settlement and refund nature.

It has several products in its kitty and offers online bookings and services
including bus tickets, air tickets, hotel accommodations, holiday packages,
weekend getaways and city travel guides. Recently Goibibo has launched two
vital features to its product kit. Anywhere to Anywhere flight bookings helps in
getting best fare options for international destinations to and from any place in
the world. Flight Advice is a search engine that helps users in finding results of
their personal choice. It includes price options, preferred destination routes or
even duration of a flight.
5.2. (b). Place

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Goibibo has spread its presence to every part of India and is accessible
through an online portal and through mobile apps. It became a part of its owner
group in the year 2009 and has its headquarters base at Gurgaon in India.
Goibibo has a network of several offices located in places like Kolkata, Delhi,
Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Chennai. Its official website is Goibibo.com and
in the year 2015, it went on to partner Google Flight Search making it first OTA
of Indian origins. Goibibo has used innovative and latest technology for
integration, travel platform and selling platforms. At its onset company
concentrated solely on the domestic front but with time also began to offer hotel
and flight bookings in the international market. Goibibo has tie-ups with 400
airlines and has access to 52,000 routes. More than half of its bookings are via
mobile apps and done through Mobile-Web, Windows Phones, Android and
iOS and the rest through the desktop.
5.2. (c). Price:

Goibibo is an e-commerce company who has positioned itself as a trusted

portal offering best services and deals at minimum possible rates. Its business
model and pricing strategy is supported on its concept of low-charge of user
acquisition. The company has adopted an economic pricing policy and offers
air bookings at lowest rates in all e-commerce portals of travel booking. It has
a payment gateway PayU that helps in securing its transactions. As Goibibo
faces stiff competition from several rival companies it has adopted competitive
pricing policy to maintain its customer base. The type of user response it
creates has helped in generating large revenue sources.
5.2. (d) Promotions

Goibibo has a strong promotional strategy that has helped its company in
reaching unimaginable heights in tourism and travel industry. The company
relies heavily on its campaigns that are aired on radio, several channels of
television through electronic media. It has also taken help of print media and
its ads are displayed on hoardings, newspapers and travel magazines. As it is
related to online industry its usage of social media platforms is very high and
its Facebook page has 1.5 million users.

As part of its marketing plan, it offers various deals and incentives to its
customers like rupees 2000 cashback if booked via Goibibo coupons, 60%
discount on domestic air-tickets with coupons and discount of Rupees 800 if
the coupon code is used. Goibibo has been the recipient of several awards in
recent times. It was awarded Best Tech Travel Award by The Economic Times
in the year 2015 and India’s Best Website in the year 2014.
5.3 Company Name:Airbnb
5.3 (a) People
At present airbnb have 1000-5000 employees.
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5.3 (b) Price
Price starts from 670 to 8000 depending on type of room you take
5.3 (c) Place

Headquaters San francisco, ca (us) (delhi ncr for india) Spread over in more
than 34,000 cities and 192 countries
5.3 (d) Promotion

15% off on airbnb for hdfc bank debit,credit and forex card holders,Flat 15%
off on first stays with airbnb bookings worldwide – for sbi card users.Room
bookings starting at rs.670 only.Promotion through social media sites.
5.3 (e) Process

Renting service for apartment for a night, a castle for a week, or a villa for a
month.
5.3 (f) Product:
travel, hospitality service, home stay, vacation rentals.
5.3 (g) Physical evidence

Unique travel experiences, at any price point. world-class customer service

and a growing community of users

6. Service leadership and Innovation

1. Monitor your communities attentively
2. Make sure customers know exactly what they're getting
3. Test, test, and test some more
4. Tackle an archaic industry head-on
6.1. Service Innovations
Supplementary Service Innovation –pick up and drop facility, car(transport)
and travel agency
Self Service Technology-
1. Saves people money
2.Saves people time
3.Can accomplish something that was previously not possible
4. Brings their life more pleasure

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