Safety first! From OYO’s latest COVID safety initiatives for quarantine facilities to sustainable travel choices

With a surge in Coronavirus cases, Indian travellers are turning cautious with their travel choices. Prioritising safety has become the need of the hour for travellers and staying at home is the safest option. For travellers who turn COVID positive and want to self-quarantine themselves at another location, OYO has rolled out a handy feature on its app to enable the same.

In this regard, OYO has extended its support to India’s healthcare system that is under tremendous pressure by rolling out a new feature on its app whereby users can now book their quarantine stay using the OYO app itself.

Under its ‘Stay Safe’ alliance, the company has tied up with local authorities and several hospitals to extend support to COVID-19 patients, essential workers and the medical community.

In talks with more than 50 hospitals including Lady Hardinge, Ambedkar, Ram Manohar Lohiya, Lok Nayak hospital to offer quarantine facilities, OYO is further extending its facilities to offer home care companies to provide home-like facilities.

Simply put, anyone can book a quarantine facility through OYO app.

OYO’s latest COVID-19 initiative offers ‘Refuge to everyone’

Sharing his views on the efforts being taken to support India’s healthcare system, Rohit Kapoor, CEO, OYO INSEA highlighted that the company is turning few of its select properties to function as quarantine and isolation facilities for COVID-19 positive patients. He termed OYO’s latest initiative as a ‘small but meaningful way’ to offer ‘refuge’ to everyone who needs it now.

Indian travellers show preference for sustainable travel

Meanwhile, a notable insight from a recent survey shared by a leading digital travel platform Booking.com indicates that 68 per cent of Indian travellers want the money they spend on travel to benefit the local community.

Highlighting key findings in its recent research related to travel trends ahead of Earth Day 2021, Booking.com shared its insights on how travellers are adapting to a more eco-conscious mindset when it comes to their travel choices.

Around 98 per cent of Indian travellers indicated their preference to stay in an eco-accommodation at least once, Booking.com has shared. This further increases to a whopping 100 per cent for travellers from Vietnam, followed by travellers from Colombia (98%) and Thailand (98%).

Meanwhile, IHCL Hotels marked the occasion of Earth Day in April 2021 with a significant milestone of having 47 of its hotels achieving the EarthCheck Platinum Certification, thereby demonstrating 11 continuous years of ensuring sustainable tourism management practices. Currently, a total of 78 IHCL hotels, which are EarthCheck certified, have generated significant savings since the year 2008 by reducing water consumption, waste, greenhouse emissions among others.

Another notable facet is the IHCL Hotels endeavor to phase out single use plastics across its hotels and replacing all plastic water bottles with reusable glass bottles across 15 hotels.

With more hospitality brands embracing ‘green practices’, Indian travellers become empowered to make informed decisions that promote sustainable tourism and benefit local communities.

Coronavirus second wave: Hotel occupancies impacted

With travel bookings turning cautious, hotel occupancies across different states have been impacted.

Ahead of Holi celebrations this year, Financial Express Online had spoken to Vana’s Executive Director Jaspreet Singh who shared insights on how Indian travellers are taking Ayurveda more seriously than ever before.

Catering to serve the growing demand for Indian wellness practices such as meditation, yoga and home made decoctions, the Dehradul based wellness retreat had incorporated Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan Healing) in its true form. With a minimalistic approach, the retreat focused on promoting wellness.

However, the number of hotel booking cancellations are raising concerns for the hospitality industry.

According to Vineet Verma, Executive Director & CEO, Brigade Hospitality, “With restrictions on international travel still continuing, the hotels have been trying to make do with a limited domestic audience. Occupancies had been inching up over the past few months but the lockdown in Karnataka and a few other states in light of the second wave, does not augur well for the hotels. We have been seeing a number of cancellations in room bookings as also in banquets.”

Even as the country is set to witness a slump in terms of hotel bookings, it is for travellers to prioritize their safety first and ensure that they double-mask, follow all safety protocols at all times and leave nothing to chance.