Vaccination visibility will become a confidence builder for travel recovery: Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, OYO Rooms

OYO launches VaccinAid as an industry first feature! Given that vaccination against the virus has emerged as the most important tool to fight COVID-19, OYO has rolled out VaccinAid, a notable vaccine visibility initiative to drive awareness and social reinforcement among small and medium hotels and homes to get vaccinated against COVID-19. OYO also believes that vaccine visibility. Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms tweeted, “We are launching an industry-first feature, Vaccin Aid to show self-reported vaccination status of hotel staff across OYOs.” Notably, with this VaccinAid initiative, OYO has emerged as the first app in the travel ecosystem to indicate the vaccination status of hotel staff.

A recent internal consumer survey by OYO indicated that 87% respondents said they would prefer to stay at hotels with vaccinated staff when they return. For travellers, the advantage that VaccinAid offers is that it will help them gain visibility on vacation homes and hotels with vaccinated staff, be it either the first dose or the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. This enables travellers and app users to finalise their hotel booking choices.

1/ Vaccination is the most important intervention against COVID-19.

We are launching an industry-first feature, VaccinAid, to show self-reported vaccination status of hotel staff across OYOs. pic.twitter.com/lI9fYlmlLt

— Ritesh Agarwal (@riteshagar) May 11, 2021

2/ Our guest surveys show that 87% will prefer hotels with immunized staff when they plan to travel again.

Vaccination visibility when self-reported timely and accurately will become a confidence builder for travel recovery.

— Ritesh Agarwal (@riteshagar) May 11, 2021

3/ VaccinAid is our small attempt to promote the larger cause of vaccination among our customers as well as our hotel partners & their staff.

— Ritesh Agarwal (@riteshagar) May 11, 2021

For most travellers, they can choose to book hotels with immunized staff and thereby this acts as an enabler for sustaining domestic tourism in the coming months.

Emergency travel during lockdown
With the second wave of COVID-19 hitting us severely and many states including Karnataka announcing complete lockdown, emergency travel is made possible with safety protocols as top priority.

According to Savaari Car Rentals, many people are currently opting for one-way service so as to get themselves dropped at their hometowns. Highlighting this aspect, Savaari Car Rentals told Financial Express Online that it has witnessed a 35% increase in their one-way service since the onset of the second wave of COVID-19. Few of the most popular routes in Karnataka that have seen demand doubling for the one-way service are Bangalore-Mangalore; Bangalore-Hyderabad and a host of other cities too.

In the coming months, safety protocols will determine choices related to travel choices and hotel bookings. As OYO’s founder and CEO Ritesh Agawarl rightly tweeted, “Vaccination visibility will become a confidence builder for travel recovery.”