On its international expansion spree, hospitality startup Oyo now ventures into Spain and Portugal and launches its operations in the two countries.

To lead the business in these two countries it has roped in former Spain’s Groupon CEO, Tobias Jörk.

While Oyo has already launched operations in Spanish cities including Madrid, Valencia, Andalusia and Barcelona earlier this month with a clutch of properties, it is yet to launch in Portugal. The hiring for the Spanish cities has also been going on aggressively, especially for business development and HR functions.

Found in 2013, Oyo has expanded from just twenty rooms and a single hotel brand to 3.30,000 rooms across more than 12,000 franchised/managed hotels in seven markets including India, China and UK. Now, with an Oyo Townhouse property in London and its expansion in Spain and Portugal will further strengthen its presence in Europe. 

Not only in Europe but the SoftBank-backed company has been expanding a lot lately and in this year it has entered six countries including China, Dubai, UK, Indonesia, amongst others. In October, Oyo spread its footprint in Malaysia and UAE and recently, it also roped in former IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh as the CEO for India and South Asia.

Recently, Ritesh Agarwal, founder and group chief executive officer shared how he aims to make Oyo the world’s largest hotel chain globally by 2023 and with its increased focus on international expansion, it seems to be moving towards the goal.

“We aspire to be the world’s largest hotel company built out of Asia with home markets of India and China. Currently, Marriott is the largest and we have a lot of respect for the company. We aspire to be bigger than that. We have already built in the growth rate at which they have been growing in the last couple of years to set our target for 2023,” said Ritesh Agarwal.

However, expansion comes with its own challenges. From dealing with the unique problems of each country/market to increased costs, Oyo has a lot on its plate. Amidst these challenges and competition from already well-established hotel chains, how Oyo leads its aggressive international expedition successfully and achieves its goal to become the world's largest chain globally is something to look forward to.