Oyo extends premium holiday home booking brand to the UK

Indian hospitality group Oyo is expanding its luxury holiday home rental brand Belvilla into the UK.

The company has launched Belvilla by Oyo to offer short-term stays in "prime locations" across the country.

It comes a year after the Softbank-backed firm announced plans to add more than 50 hotels to its UK listings, which amounted to a third of its portfolio at the time.

Belvilla by Oyo currently operates across Europe as a full-service holiday home rental network with a portfolio of over 50,000 properties in more than 20 countries, including in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France.

The platform was originally founded in 1980 and became part of the Amsterdam-based @Leisure Group in 2007. It joined Oyo following the tech company’s acquisition of @Leisure Group in 2019.

For its UK launch, Belvilla by Oyo has partnered with apartment rental chain Sojo Stays to offer holiday homes to cities such as London, Sheffield, Leeds, Birmingham and Milton Keynes.

Sojo Stays was founded in 2019 by James and Stephanie Murphy and has since grown to more than 250 apartments across five UK cities.

Gautam Swaroop, chief executive of OYO International, said: “The company has taken learnings from managing premium rental properties in diverse European markets and applied them to the UK market by integrating the best global practices with local market insights.”

Puneet Yadav, head – OYO UK, added: “We want to offer new experiences for our guests, while unlocking new revenue opportunities for homeowners.”

Belvilla by Oyo is also part of the European holiday home rental agency Oyo Vacation Homes (OVH), which also features DanCenter and online marketplace Traum-Ferienwohnungen.

Oyo first entered the UK market in 2018 with aims to develop over 5,000 rooms within 18 months of launching. It currently has over 150 hotels in 65 UK cities.

In 2019, Airbnb took a stake in Oyo, with reports suggesting it had invested more than £76m.