OYO Hotels names country manager for Malaysia

OYO Hotels has appointed Tan Ming Luk (pictured below) as its new country head for Malaysia. He was previously the head of paid advertising and business development at Shopee and also worked at ofo and Axiata Digital as country head and head of ignition labs respectively. He has over 13 years of relevant experience with a focus in digital payment and marketing, as well as strategy development and operational improvement. Additionally, Tan also has management consulting experience from his days at McKinsey and Accenture. The press statement said that his experience, coupled with his knowledge on go-to-market and growth hacking strategies, will serve OYO well in Malaysia, as it continues to expand its reach among target consumers of budget-savvy travellers and achieve competitive advantage in the budget hotel sector. “Building on our phenomenal growth in 2018, OYO is now setting the bar higher in Malaysia as we forecast exponential growth moving into 2019," Tan said. He added that the key towards a successful business plan is to understand the gap where markets are being underserved. Tan noted that there was "a huge disconnect" between the demand and supply of quality living spaces that are being offered in Malaysia, forcing travellers and urban dwellers to compromise on location, quality and price. As such, OYO plans to utilise technology and talent to fix this problem. Last December, OYO received US$100 million in investment from Grab, after it raised RM3.3 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank Investment Advisers through SoftBank Vision Fund in September. Read also: Grab said to invest US$100m into OYO Hotels Indian budget hotel network OYO raises RM4.14bn in latest funding round Tencent tipped to invest up to US$500m in Indian budget hotel network OYO Indian budget hotel network OYO invests US$20m for Malaysia expansion plan