Hospitality

OYO appoints Sam Shih as COO for China market

In order to drive international growth, OYO Hotels has appointed  Sam Shih as its Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the China market. As COO, Sam will be responsible for the overall regional operations, driving consumer experience and building operating efficiencies at scale across OYO China.

Before OYO Hotels, Sam served as President of Global Consumables and CEO at Asia Pulp & Paper Co. Limited, a giant in the pulp and paper industry. He also led the operations at Red Bull and Accor Group, France. Sam started his career and spent over two decades in PepsiCo Inc.

“We are really excited to welcome Sam as a Partner and COO, OYO China. We have witnessed tremendous growth during the last one year which has helped OYO Jiudian emerge as amongst the top 3 hotel chains in China. Sam’s incredible operating acumen coupled with a strong understanding of P&L will be extremely invaluable as we forge ahead in our mission to create quality living spaces and help the small hotels deliver an exceptional customer experience which is at par with the big hotel chains. We are confident that Sam’s experience will help us set new benchmarks in the hotel industry, as well as help oversee and nurture a high-performing workforce,” said Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & Group CEO, OYO Hotels.

“The hospitality industry is one that attaches great importance to operations. The achievement of OYO Hotels is largely attributed to the improvement it has made to hotels’ operations, which in turn solved hotel owners’ pain points. In future, we will strive to ensure the refinement and upgrade of the company’s operation as well as that for stand-alone hotels. We aim to find a well-balanced golden triangle between cost, efficiency and service so as to fulfill the demands of both owners and consumers,” said Sam commenting on his new role.

Currently, OYO has entered 280 cities in China, operating more than 5000 hotels with 260,000 rooms.