kolkata on his first business trip to ambala a couple of years ago shyambazar resident sumit ghosh had a horrid experience unfamiliar with the town he had depended on the client to make a hotel reservation it turned out to be a poorly maintained guest house though ghosh had shifted to a hotel soon afterwards it didnt merit the rs 4000 per night tariff when ghosh went to ambala again last week he checked into an oyo rooms hotel on his mobile and checked in paying rs 1499 a night anwesha dutta of ballygunge has always seen her father book hotels through a travel agent and then they would pray that hotel was a decent one ismail who is now an event management professional books hotels online after checking the rooms and services on offer usually on goibibo when her colleagues and friends travel to kolkata they use oyo rooms stayzilla and goibibo to make reservations at budget hotels the key things that i look for in a hotel are location hygiene comfort and safety traditionally one got out of a station in a small town hailed a cab and then depended on the driver to find a hotel that suited the budget in metro cities one coughed up rs 50006000 for a night stay that has changed with hotels rooms now available online one can select hotel location check the room look at facilities and book it without hassle ghosh pointed out according to online booking platform goibibo one in every two travellers from kolkata book their hotel rooms online travellers look for reliability and predictability in hotels online booking platforms give travellers access to littleknown budget hotels since they get to rate and review the hotels it also keeps the hotel management on their toes to ensure that the service standard does not dip also instead of moodbased or arbitrary pricing that earlier existed there is dynamic tariff now ibibo group chief executive ashish kashyap told toi with travellers now being able to access budget hotels 80 are opting for smaller hotels guest houses service apartments like zostel instead of bigger known brands such is the explosive growth in this category that goibibocom has introduced an exclusive platform for budget hotels there are 20000 hotels on this platform now with 2500 being added every month according to kavikrut head expansion at oyo rooms the booking application it launched three months ago has already had 300000 downloads with 45 of the bookings now being done till a few years ago there were three things that one needed to do in advance when travelling to another city book an air or train ticket book a hotel and book a car with the advent of appbased cabs ola and uber no one bothers about advance car booking now it will be similar in hotels we have dovetailed the app in a way that one can also book a taxi ride to the hotel and can request room service using the phone