May the 11th, 2022 - The global giant OYO Rooms has taken over the Croatian Direct Booker which has its origins in Dubrovnik and is eyeing further European expansion.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, with the aim of further expansion across Europe, the global online platform for tourist accommodation, OYO Rooms, has taken over the Croatian Direct Booker, an online agency founded in Dubrovnik which specialises in the management of units for tourist accommodation and technology development.

The founders of Direct Booker, Nino Dubretic and Nikola Grubelic, as well as IT expert Ivan Bogoje, remain within the company's management, and with this acquisition they have gained a strong global partner that will enable further growth and expansion in Europe.

The news of the takeover was announced by Grubisic & Partners, which was the exclusive financial advisor to the management and shareholders of the Croatian Direct Booker company throughout this process.

According to the announcement, Direct Booker is a top holiday rental agency based in Dubrovnik, specialising in holoday rental management and IT solutions. In addition to managing 3,250 accommodation units throughout the Republic of Croatia, the company also offers Booker Tools, an internally developed software system for real estate and channel management. The merger with OYO Rooms opens up new opportunities for the Croatian Direct Booker company to further grow and expand their IT solutions worldwide.

Headquartered in Guargaon, India, OYO Rooms is one of the world’s largest online travel and hospitality platforms with a presence in more than 80 countries around the world. Direct Booker has been added to its European subsidiary OYO Vacation Homes, which manages more than 140,000 holiday homes in 70 countries. OYO founded Ritesh Agarwal back in 2012, and initially their focus was on smaller hotels.

In less than a decade, the start-up has expanded rapidly and globally, with thousands of hotels and holiday homes and millions of rooms in its portfolio. Such rapid expansion has been achieved through the use of a technology-driven franchise model. With more than 5,000 employees, OYO Rooms generated revenues of 550 million US dollars in 2021 alone.

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