Paytm enters hotel booking business, acquires NightStay

Paytm has forayed into hotel bookings and announced the acquisition of NightStay, a luxury hotel-booking platform that offers deals on last-minute bookings. Paytm, owned by One97 Communications, is set to invest Rs 500 crore to scale up its operations and expand the hotel-booking portfolio.

Further, Paytm is in plans to leverage its deal with Noida-based NightStay to bolster its new move. NightStay co-founder and CEO Nasr Khan will be leading the newly launched hotel-booking category at Paytm.

With the latest development, customers could access more than 50,000 daily room nights from hand-picked hotels. It has also initially tied up with over 5,000 hotels across the budget, luxury, and business segments. This number is aimed to reach 2 million hotels and alternate accommodations globally, with the availability of 50 million rooms within the first 18 months.

In the first phase of the launch, the company has partnered with over 5000 hotels across the budget, luxury and business segments. These include the Zuri, Sarovar, Treebo, Vresorts, Sterling, Ginger and Bloomrooms across top cities.

Paytm Travel, which had started in 2014, sells over 60 million tickets a year, and has become the leading player for IRCTC tickets, bus tickets, and flight bookings. Earlier this year, Paytm Travel also started offering foreign exchange bookings for international travellers.