Oravel Stays, the parent company of hospitality unicorn OYO, plans to launch the first Palette hotel in Morbi, Gujarat - the ceramic hub of India. The 48-room hotel aims to cater to the business travelers needs in the region that is home to 90% of India's tile production with an annual turnover of about INR 50,000 crore. Oravel Stays had first piloted 10 Palette hotels in cities like Jaipur, Hyderabad, Digha, Mumbai, Chennai, Manesar and Bengaluru last year and now plans to take direct operational control of select properties in high-growth locations. Once completed, it will have 23 Palette hotels in total, operating on a self-managed model similar to OYO hotels. This marks the restart of OYO's self-operated business that was discontinued in 2020.
Hospitality major OYO’s parent, Oravel Stays, is looking to open 13 self-operated hotels under its premium brand ‘Palette’ by the end of this year. Replicating a model similar to OYO Rooms, it will kick off the plan by opening a Palette hotel in Gujarat’s Morbi.
Oravel Stays said that the Palette hotel will be located to cater to the needs of business travellers in the country’s ceramic hub. It will feature 48 rooms and cater to the demand for premium accommodation amidst the region’s booming economic growth. The district is home to over 800 tile factories, accounting for 90% of India's tile production, with an annual turnover of about INR 50,000 crore.
Oravel Stays first piloted hotels under the Palette brand last year by launching 10 properties in cities such as Jaipur, Hyderabad, Digha, Mumbai, Chennai, Manesar and Bengaluru. The startup now plans to take direct operational control of select Palette hotels in “high-growth and promising locations”. Once completed by the end of the year, Oravel Stays will count 23 hotels under the new brand.
Interestingly, the hospitality unicorn has been experimenting with the brand name Palette for some time now. In 2018, it announced its foray into the upscale hotel category under the name Palette Resorts. Eventually, last year, it began experimenting with the new offering via a trial launch in multiple cities, but at a lower scale.
Apart from this, the Gurugram-based startup also operates sub-brands such as Townhouse Oak, OYO Townhouse, Collection O, and Capital O under its umbrella.
The Palette hotels will operate on a similar “self-operated” model as Oyo’s hotels. The move will, therefore, not prove very capital-intensive for the company. This will be the restarting of the self-operated model by the company which was discontinued in 2020.
The new offering comes as OYO gears up for a potential public listing by the end of the year. Oyo recently relaunched self-operated hotels under the ‘Prime Partner Program’ more than two years after it halted the service. As part of the programme, Oyo will secure annual, long-term management contracts on the revenue share basis of 200 premium hotels across Indian metros.
Alongside these developments, OYO has also turned profitable. Last month, OYO CEO Ritesh Aggarwal said that the startup posted a second consecutive profitable quarter in Q3 FY24, doubling its profit after tax (PAT) to INR 30 crore.
Founded in 2013 by Ritesh Agarwal, OYO is a hospitality major that is backed by the likes of SoftBank, Airbnb, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Innoven Capital, and Hero Enterprises.
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