Tourism sector recovering; sense of optimism in industry: OYO CEO Ritesh Agarwal

The tourism industry is recovering and there is a sense of optimism in the sector, founder and CEO of OYO Rooms Ritesh Agarwal said on Thursday.

"India had over a billion domestic visits right before the pandemic, and increasing as we speak, and... I hope that we will get back there or even further in a period of time. So I think tourism in my view is going to come back with vengeance and in the last two weeks ...I think the next few months are going to be very busy for us," Agarwal said at the Times Network's India Economic Conclave.

Talking about new trends of vacations in remote work mode amid COVID-19, he said, workations, homestays and rural tourism are here to stay for a long time.

About digitisation in the tourism industry, Agarwal said India is a country of entrepreneurs, and to build businesses companies have two choices, either to work with small businesses and make them successful and in the process become successful or try to compete with them.

"I think small businesses are systemic to our country and companies which make small businesses systemic to their business will be successful. In my view OYO is very deeply connected to the power of small businesses in India," he added.