Room N House, which commenced operations in 2012, has notched a 25-30 per cent growth month on month to achieve it’s current reach of three lakh customers. Riding on this success, the company plans to expand its base, not just within India, but on an international platform as well. Speaking with T3, Rakesh Singh, Co founder, Room N House revealed that the company is planning Thailand, Dubai and Sri Lanka platforms. They are in the process of acquiring the compliances for the same.
“The Indian government has been supportive so far expanding our base in the country has faced little issue. We see this as a good opportunity, however, to expand to an international base, where the demand is existent. The platforms will feature language integration, and will be developed in phases over the next six months,” Singh said.
Speaking about Room N House’s focus, Singh stated that the company wants to get tourists in touch with the local culture of the destinations being visited to create unique memories. To the same end, they are in talks with State Tourism Boards such as Jammu & Kashmir and Maharashtra, as well as India Tourism, to ink partnerships. They hope to announce some developments on this front in a few months. The aim will be to promote the states and local accommodations and educate the travellers about the destination’s essence.
Furthermore, Room N House is also going to start tapping the B2B market, and are building a platform for the same, Singh stated. The aim is to further their reach to the tier II and III cities especially. “So far our platform has been B2C, but we want to provide a trade platform where the bookings will be done by agents, but the communication will be from our end so we can provide our expertise. The platform should be ready in the next two to three months,” Singh added.
When asked about a B2B platform for the international bases as well, Singh commented that Room N House will first establish it’s India B2B market before moving to the others.
Room N House’s strongest segment has been vacation and business travel, although the company does offer budget services as well as luxury products. According to Singh, backpacking and budgets accommodations have been gaining popularity. Highlighting their marketing strategy so far, he stated that they have been increasing their social media marketing and video marketing, and have also participated in travel events to showcase their offerings. “We have now started offering review stays, i.e. inviting people to stay and write reviews of alternate accommodations to encourage other customers to come visit, and this has worked well. We have followed a very organic growth strategy,” Singh concluded.
