MiStay is a travel-tech company which allows booking hotel rooms by pack of hours with flexible check-in & check-out times. Instead of the rigid full day booking (12 noon – 12 noon) being done traditionally, MiStay offers booking based on slots (8 am – 11 am (Morning slot), 12 noon – 7 pm (Day slot), 8 pm – 7 am (Night slot)). Travelers can book a room for few hours and only pay only for time stayed. This not only fills the needs of frequent business travelers as well as leisure travelers who require room for less than a day or with flexible timings, but also gives hotels a channel to increase their occupancy and revenue per available room
MiStay has now partnered with around 115 hotels across 8 cities in India (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune, Gurgaon). The hotels range from 2 star to 5 star hotels (like Clarks Exotica Convention Resorts & Spa, Kenilworth Hotel) including some chains like Pride Hotels, Mango Hotels, etc. Apart from the two core pillars – paying only for time stayed, and flexible check-in/check-out times, another key aspect that differentiates MiStay from any other player in the industry is the extreme due-diligence in partnering with hotels. We only partner with a hotel if we are fully convinced after our due diligence that they’ll give wonderful experience to customers. You’ll notice that most of our partner hotels have Tripadvisor rating more than 4 out of 5, for instance.
Who can use it?
The key target customers are travelers who require room for less than a day or with flexible check-in time.
- In Transit Travelers:
- Long layover at airport/ railway station
2.Business Travelers:
- Freshen up before business meetings
- Conduct business meetings
- Relax after the meeting & before late night return flights
3. Leisure Travelers
- Don’t want to wait till noon to check-in
- Freshen up before attending a ceremony/ function
- Require place only to sleep over the night
4. Health Travelers
- Goes/ accompanies to hospital for treatment
5. Religious Travelers
- Visiting pilgrimages
6. Academic Travelers
- Students coming for writing competitive exams
- Coming for job interviews
And anyone who needs to book a hotel room for a few hours and not the entire day. In fact, the concept also enables the middle income people to be able to experience luxury of 5 star hotels which they couldn’t afford for full day but will be able to afford when booking for a slot of few hours.
Founding Story
The founding team consists of Sandeep & Pranav. Sandeep is the CEO and responsible for operations & business development, while Pranav is the CTO and leads technology & design. Other than the founders, there is an operations manager, a city coordinator and a few interns in the company.
MiStay was launched in April 2016 with 2 cities (Delhi & Gurgaon) and 12 hotels. The idea of MiStay was born when one of the founders, Sandeep, was denied the room even though it was booked online during his trip to Amritsar as he had reached the hotel before the standard check-in time of 12 noon. He had to pay half day extra tariff to check-in early. Even though the room was used only for couple of hours in the morning to freshen up, and for around 6 hours in the night to sleep (effective for only around 9 hours i.e. less than half a day), he ended up paying for a one and half day.
There was a time when one had to hire a cab for the entire day if they needed to use it even for a few hours. After the dent made by services like Ola and Uber in the cab industry, it is hard to imagine booking a cab for an entire day when you need it only to go to work. Unfortunately, this has not changed when it comes to hotel booking. People are used to booking a room for an entire day even when we need it for just a few hours.
“We feel it is unethical and unfair to be charged for an entire day when we use a room for only few hours. We started MiStay with the aim of breaking the age-old traditions and changing the rules of hospitality to make travel flexible and fair to travelers”, says Sandeep
How and where can the service be accessed?
- MiStay Website: These was launched in April 2016. This is the consumer facing portal through which one can make a booking at a hotel through MiStay
- MiStay Android App: Another consumer facing portal allowing users to book hotel rooms from their mobile on the go.
- MiStay Extranet: This is the software provided to the partner hotels for managing room rates and inventory. This was also developed by April 2016
- MiStay for Business: This is a portal developed for corporates, where the travel managers in any company can make bookings on behalf of the company employees. This was launched in October 2016
A user booking a hotel can either make the payment online or can choose to pay at the hotel itself.
In case of any queries, we can be contacted here – https://www.mistay.in
We are also available on the following social platforms – MiStay – Facebook, MiStayConnect – Twitter, Mistay -LinkedIn, MiStay – Youtube.
