Paytm purchases NightStay, launches hotel booking platform

Paytm, an ecommerce company, recently started a new hotel booking feature on their platform and purchased NightStay, a company that provides deals for last second booking at luxury hotels.

Paytm said it plans to invest $70 million in scaling up its travel operations and has partnered with more than 5,000 hotels across the budget, luxury and business segments.

Its hotel partners include chains like Sarovar, Zuri, Treebo, Indian Hotels Co’s Ginger, Sterling and Vresorts.

The company said it aims to reach 2 million hotels and alternative accommodations globally and become Asia's top hotel-booking destination by 2020.

As per previous reports, the company had been in talks to acquire NightStay for around $20 million (Rs 142 crore).

NightStay aggregates unsold inventory across luxury and business hotels and offers last-minute concessional rates to customers. Paytm started its travel business in 2014 and claims to sell over 60 million tickets a year across rail, bus and flight bookings. Earlier this year, Paytm Travel also started offering foreign-exchange services to international travellers.

Nightstay founder Nasr Khan will lead the hotel-booking services at Paytm. “We want to offer the broadest travel selection on our platform, and look forward to continuing our expansion with the help of our trusted travel partners,” said Madhur Deora, chief financial officer at Paytm.

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