By Salman SH and Sneha Johari Rakesh Rana, former head of hotel stays at Cleartrip, has launched a budget accommodation company called Comfy Stays which will also offer guest houses and aggregate service apartments, reports TechCircle. Rana told TechCircle that the company, which was founded in November last year, has partnered with offline travel agency Namaaskar India to evaluate the 2,000 properties on the latter’s network. The partnership will allow Comfy Stays to make advanced bookings of 35-40% and charge a 10% commission for the property bookings and an additional 5% as service charge fee. It it also looking to offer professional standardised services in the entry level hotel segment. Rana claims that his company will aggregate hotel rooms under Rs 1,000 per day and partner with 3,000 hotels by March, and 20,000 more by the next financial year. The company expects students, traders traveling to metros, as well as travelers in the leisure segment to use the platform, which, according to Rana, counts for 60-70% of domestic travelers. It also aims for a turnover of Rs 220 crore over the next 12-16 months. Comfy Stay will compete with companies like Treebo, WudStay and Vista Rooms. Also read: OTA marketplace fragmented but travel experiences are converging – Skift Recent developments in the online travel and hotel booking industry: - Earlier this month, US-based TripAdvisor launched its dedicated platform for hotel-reservations in India along with Australia, Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore and South Africa. - In September, Goibibo launched…
