Yoho Bed, Sri Lanka’s largest hospitality company has attained recognition through its innovative technology and rapid growth since its inception. Yoho Bed offers an alternative to the mass produced tourism and caters to the new change in the way people travel. The company makes travel accessible to everyone by offering an affordable yet, comfortable stay experience through its alternative accommodation options.

“We understand the new trend where people today want to visit neighbourhoods, discover new cultures, meet new people and experience places like a local. We built Yoho Bed based on that understanding and we stay current through our in house data scientists who work towards finding and interpreting regular travel patterns,” says Yoho Bed’s futuristic Chairman, Ajith Fernando.

Yoho Bed in the last year has been able to offer a hassle-free and authentic stay experience to travellers, while preserving what is so special and unique about Sri Lanka. Most Yoho Bed properties are patronised by guests travelling from countries such as Russia, China, India, Middle East, USA and United Kingdom.

The modern day tourist doesn’t want to be stuck in long lines fighting with the crowds to see the same thing as everyone else, they don’t want to sit in a luxurious hotel and do mainstream things and in this sense Yoho Bed property partners have more to offer than generic hospitality. They open up their places and welcome travellers from around the world into their communities. But most of these property partners are not able to project themselves and stand out among competition due to the lack of expertise or financial capabilities.

Empowering Property Partners

Property partners are the heart of Yoho Bed’s business model. Through this unique partnership these property owners receive a significant operational and technology upgrade, which helps to redefine their business. Apart from a brand identity that is gaining significant traction, property partners are extended standard toiletries, guidance in revenue management and training in delivering the best of hospitality. This increases the opportunity for the property partners to get more visibility to guests and increased bookings.

A key element of the partnership with Yoho Bed is its unsurpassed support in the digital space for the property partners. The strategic collaborations established in the short time of Yoho Bed being in operation have significantly developed its online capabilities from which its accommodation partners continue to benefit.

Property partners are provided a system and mobile application that connects them to leading OTA’s including but not limited to; booking.com , Agoda, Expedia, Airbnb, Ctrip, MakeMyTrip and Ostrovok. The Yoho system allows an online reservations and guest management functionality and seamless two-way OTA connectivity in real-time to the growing membership of property partners. This has resulted in small time property owners in Sri Lanka being accessible through technology. Yoho Bed is currently in the process of extending geo standard WiFi facility to its property partners.

Sri Lanka has a large network of hotels, traditional private homestays and other alternative accommodation run by local micro-entrepreneurs. Through co-branding themselves and admitting their properties to the Yoho Bed system these property owners have increased their revenue by at least 30%.

The 360 degree turnkey solution extended including staff training, industry insights and regular accommodation audits allows property partners to primarily focus on the guest and extends Yoho Bed direct control over the quality of the travel experience.

Alternative accommodation options for travellers

Currently, Yoho Bed accommodations are spread across Sri Lanka with a strong focus in areas such as Ella, Nuwara Eliya which account 25% of the bookings closely followed by the commercial capital Colombo, Negombo, Anuradhapura and Kandy, making the company a fast-growing entity in the island.

While travellers from many countries have previously been able to visit Sri Lanka, they now have access to the benefits offered through the Yoho Bed platform, such as 24/7 customer support, the ability to book through any other OTA. The key offering for Yoho Bed travellers is a peace of mind with regard to their stay as this innovative hospitality company assures a comfortable bed, clean washrooms and decent WiFi.

With over 500+ properties available to book across 25+ cities in Sri Lanka, Yoho Bed offers the largest and most diverse range of alternative accommodation options from unique hotels and villas to intimate bungalows and homestays all in one place for travellers. Over time, Yoho Bed aims to strengthen its capability in catering information through its extensive and growing blog, which will make it both easy and informative for the traveller to learn about Sri Lanka and unique experiences it has to offer.

Strong investor backing and innovative technology

“We have spent countless hours with our investors and board of directors and have seen first-hand their passion towards driving amazing business ventures. They share our values towards hospitality as well as technology and strongly support our ultimate aim of contributing towards the tourism industry in Sri Lanka,” said CEO, Usama Naguib. “We are keen on projecting this same enthusiasm towards our customers and are grateful to the incredible energy and talent our team and partners offer us to help support our mission.”

Yoho Bed is a company that is driven by technology. “We are always exploring ways to organise ourselves internally by incorporating data science, research, engineering and product design which will help us identify ways to positively impact our business,” says COO, Fathhi Mohamed. Having been intricately involved in the technology and operations at PickMe as a Co-Founder, he’s keen on building technologies for Yoho Bed together with his team that will help push their mission forward and support property partners and guests. “Scaling technology across Yoho Bed will help us be more flexible and bring more personalisation and ease to the end-to-end travel experience,” he says.

Yoho Bed is revolutionising the hospitality landscape in Sri Lanka by empowering small-scale property owners to deliver a tremendous stay experience to its guests. With a strong backing by its investors and people experienced in running successful start-ups, Yoho Bed is committed to empowering its property partners to deliver quality, comfortable and affordable travel experiences to its travellers.