Short stay accommodation company HeyBednBreakfast (HeyBnb) has announced its entry into India with presence in cities like New Delhi, Bengaluru, Goa and Kochi. Headquartered in Singapore, the company works on the concept of shared economy of home sharing. HeyBnb provides an online marketplace connecting hosts who want to make their extra rooms available and travellers who are looking for affordable short-term accommodations.
Kenny Blatt, co-founder and head of strategy, HeyBnb said, “We are bullish about our expansion plans and we want to rope in as many guests and hosts as possible. We are focusing largely on key cities across Asia, Europe, the US and Australia. In India alone, we started our operations this year with 17 cities and expect to increase our room count to 60,000 by end-October. The global size of the vacation stay market is expected to reach US$ 170 billion by 2019, out of which five players own less than 10 per cent share, namely Home Away, Airbnb, VRBO, One Fine Stay and Tujian.”
Hosts on HeyBnb can register their home properties on the website for free, set a price per night for the accommodation and upload pictures. The platform allows the host to post additional criteria to find out who they could be letting out their homes to. Guests can search properties listed online on HeyBnb website, choose their preferences and book online. Both guests and hosts can write reviews about each other, which are displayed on the property’s listing page.
Stan Dong, co-founder and head of technology, HeyBnb said, “We are enthusiastic about HeyBnb entering Indian shores and are primarily focusing on destination cities/states like Goa, Ladakh, Kerala, Rajasthan, Gangtok, Shimla, pilgrimage destinations, forest and hill stations. We want to cater to leisure travellers like youth, families, solo travellers and women travellers, hence most properties listed on our platform are in the price range from INR 1,000-13,000. We want HeyBnb to be the one-stop platform for foreigners when they visit India.”
Currently HeyBnb is present across 17 key metros and cities including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Goa, Varanasi, Sarnath, Dehradun, Agra, Coorg, Bir Billing (Himachal Pradesh), Thekkady, Trichy and Puducherry among others.
