Oyo makes further rooms available for NHS staff amid pandemic

Oyo Hotels and Homes has revealed it has made further rooms available and extended its long-stay accommodation rates for essential workers amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The hotel group has seen over 50,000 room nights booked for government-approved purposes since the UK lockdown began and announced that it would keep over 2,000 rooms across the UK open to key workers and those in need of interim accommodation, at the end of March.

Oyo also announced over a dozen hotels are being used exclusively to give homeless people a safe place to sleep amid the pandemic. The group has worked with local councils and a number of homeless charities to facilitate this accommodation, with those organisations providing extra welfare and support services for guests. 

Mick Clark, chief executive of homelessness charity The Passage, said: “This public health emergency has posed a particular threat to those living on the streets, so we at The Passage are grateful to Oyo for opening their doors and helping us provide safe accommodation to those in need. 

“We’ve had up to 30 people staying across OYO’s hotels for the past eight weeks already and we’ve been delivering them daily food parcels of nutritious meals and snacks.”   

The news comes as Oyo revealed that a portion of its UK staff are at risk of redundancy as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak’s impact on the hotel industry.

The hotel group said that there are still “no clear signs or timelines’ for recovery after nearly six weeks of lockdown. Rishabh Gupta, head of hotels for OYO UK, said that as a result the chain is having to “reimagine and reshape” its business and create a new future for its people, customers and the partners it serves.