Oyo plans centre of excellence for training & capacity building in city

Kolkata: In a significant stride to extend its footprint further in Bengal, Oyo Hotels and Rooms is planning to come up with a centre of excellence for training and capacity building in Kolkata. The hotel chain also offered to help the state in maintaining a real-time digital data repository for 'Digital Arrival & Departure Register'.

"We are looking to come up with an OYO Centre of Excellence (OYO Skill Institute) by the end of this year as a part of our effort to increase our business further in Bengal. The state government has expressed to lend its support regarding the space needed," Aditya Ghosh, Oyo CEO India and South Asia said on Monday on the sidelines of Destination East 2019, organised by the CII in association with the state Tourism department.

While addressing the event, West Bengal Housing & Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) chairman Debashis Sen welcomed Ghosh's ideas and said if Ghosh plans to come up with such a facility in New Town then space can be provided on rent. Ghosh maintained that the size of the Oyo training institute would depend on the space.

As per officials in Oyo, they currently train about 3,500 people per month from around 26 institutes globally. "West Bengal has been one of the leading markets for us and we approximately have around 7,500 room capacities in this state," Ghosh added.

Oyo currently has 1.64 lakh rooms across the country and 4.5 lakh in the world.

Expressing his desire to provide assistance to the state government with regard to a real-time digital data repository, he said inflow and outflow of tourists can be managed more efficiently and transparently in comparison to the manual process.

State Tourism minister Goutam Deb said the state is joining hands with private companies to come up with new projects at Jharkhali in South 24-Parganas and Sabuj Deep in Hooghly. He also announced of developing an app so that tourists can submit their feedback through it.

State Principal Secretary, Tourism, Atri Bhattacharya said the government is emphasising on developing heritage tourism in the state.