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Year-end travel more affordable in 2017: Oyo
MUMBAI: Oyo hotels has launched its analysis report which reveals that tariffs in its hotels across top leisure destinations in India are six per cent lower this December than last year. This is in line with the company’s mission of making quality living spaces more affordable for travellers. While hotels in a majority of holiday destinations have become more affordable than before, there are some destinations witnessing higher tariffs due to sustained traveller interest and constraints of quality hotels.
The data indicates that room tariffs have come down in Darjeeling (29 per cent), Srinagar (23 per cent), Kovalam (22 per cent), Lonavala (16 per cent), and Jaisalmer (15 per cent) due to high demand.
Hill stations witnessed the greatest drop in tariffs, thanks to the emergence of new guest houses and alternate branded hospitality accommodation. Kasauli and Gangtok tariffs are nearly 30 per cent lower, while Dharamshala (-13 per cent), Lonavala (-16 per cent) and Ooty (-10 per cent) are also showed a drop.
Oyo has done aggressive capacity addition, making hospitality affordable for the masses. The increase in affordability has led to higher occupancies wherein the start-up has created value for its hotel partners. Despite an aggressive pricing model across the network, Oyo has delivered higher-than-industry occupancy of 80 per cent across its network.
With hotels in 230-plus cities, Oyo is India’s largest hotel network that has recorded more than five million check-ins till date. Backed by its data science and pricing technology, it also identified the most-expensive and most-affordable localities for budget hotels in top travel destinations.
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Unilever appoints Reema Jain as chief information officer
AI-driven transformation takes centre stage as Jain steps up
MUMBAI: Unilever has appointed Reema Jain as its new chief information officer, signalling a sharper push towards AI-led transformation across the business.
Based in Bengaluru, Jain steps into the role after serving as global vice president digital technology and site lead for Unilever’s global capability center in India. Her appointment marks both a homecoming and a strategic move, placing a seasoned insider at the helm of the company’s global technology agenda.
“Thrilled to step into the role of chief information officer at Unilever,” Jain said in a statement. “This is a powerful moment to accelerate how AI and technology will shape and power our business. I am a true believer that technology can be a powerful force for transformation, for people, for teams, for the way we work and create impact at scale.”
With nearly two decades of experience spanning ERP modernisation, digital supply chains, cloud transformation and enterprise architecture, Jain brings a rare blend of operational rigour and digital ambition.
Before returning to Unilever, she served as chief information and digital officer at Hero MotoCorp, where she spearheaded a sweeping digital overhaul. From building a platform-product structure to launching direct-to-customer plays and a finance aggregator platform, she turned technology into a revenue engine rather than a back-office utility.
She also held the role of chief digital officer at Vodafone Idea Limited, where she helped shape the company’s transition from telco to techco, crafting a digital roadmap designed to unlock new value streams.
Jain’s earlier tenure at Unilever saw her lead digital integration and ERP application management globally, overseeing business-critical SAP systems supporting the company’s multi-billion euro turnover. Her work on API-first platforms and cloud-enabled operating models laid much of the groundwork for the agility the business now seeks to scale with AI.
Her career began at GE, where she rose through roles in oracle technology leadership, operational excellence and lean six sigma, building the foundation of process discipline that continues to underpin her digital transformation philosophy.
Industry observers see her appointment as part of a broader shift across consumer goods companies, where CIOs are no longer simply custodians of systems but architects of intelligence, insight and innovation.
For Unilever, the message is clear. Technology is not just supporting the business. It is shaping it. And with Jain at the controls, the company is betting that AI will move from pilot projects to enterprise-wide impact, faster than ever.
