HotelnStudio founder to convert the 100-room facility as COVID care centre

Founder and CEO of disruptive peertopeer hospitality business HotelnStudio Shibabrata Bhaumik grown an idea that stemmed from overbooked hotels into a 10 million dollar startupThe startup was hit by the COVID19 pandemic in early 2021 and its business dropped by 5037 in a little over four weeks in February 2021However as recent lockdowns eased and acted as a boom more travelers opted to book homes instead of hotels helping HotelnStudio post a surprise profit for the early 2nd quarter The DelhiNCR based firm gained from increased interest in renting homes away from major citiesRecently the chain entwined with the Utter Pradesh City government and 100 rooms set up has been used for setting up a COVID Health Centre the hotel staff was provided with protective gear and given basic training for handling patients with symptoms As per Shibabrata ldquoall the services including rooms housekeeping disinfection and food for the patients will be provided by the hotel however the medical services in the hotel will be provided by the linked hospital The linked private hospital shall admit positive patients in their extended COVID hospitals as per the patientsrsquo medical condition and in case such patients turn severe at any point of time during their stay in the hotel heshe shall be transferredadmitted to the linked private hospitals at its scheduled ratesrdquoShibabrata admits that the startup Hotelnstudio is struggling to keep itself afloat as coronavirus ravages the global hotel industry He added ldquothe company had no option but to stop expansion plans reduce operations furlough few of its employees as it struggled to pay salariesNotably the government did not come up with any concrete relief measures for the hotel aggregate companies like HotelnStudio So to keep the chain alive Shibabrata convinced the existing VCs of his ongoing business PayQ to fund his new startup The investors asked if there was anything similar to what he was trying to build Bhaumik explains HotelnStudio will be billed as Airbnb of India in a country that lacks a steady supply of budget hotel chains HotelnStudio does not have an international competitor who will breathe down its way So when it comes to discounting and cash burning HampS possibly has the least amount of burning and so faces favorable economics on its journey forwardlsquoSHIBABRATA BHAUMIKs JOURNEY SO FARBorn in Kolkata West Bengal to an engineer Father Bhaumik displayed an entrepreneurial streak as early as grade school After completing his schooling at Kendriya Vidyalaya in Delhi his business flings continued with a scheme to resell used computers and after he earned a masters degree in 2006 in International Business he started a web development business from India for overseas clientsFew Venture capitalists from Russia and Germany showered 5 million USD on Shibabrtas innovative approach in 2015 and motivated him to create PayQ a unique highrisk merchant account company which uses cryptocurrencies and blockchains to build transactions networks for corporationsIn the year 2018 Bhaumik wanted to explore unequivocally distinctive dimensions way apart from his expertise of financial knowledge He founded HotelnStudiocom a peertopeer P2P accommodation portal that aims to standardize the service apartments into full functional hotels in the nonbranded hospitality sectorHotelnStudio HampS manages to solve the issue of affordability cleanliness as well as the availability of budget hotels across all TierI and TierII cities in the country especially Post Covid Even if Bhaumik knew the technicalities of business still it wasnt a walk in the park In fact in the era of startups he had to face several difficulties in trying to make his unconventional idea workShibabrata gained enough success by understanding business needs and building something that people want Its not always easy to get a startup funded But nowadays you dont have to travel to Silicon Valley and have lunch with venture capitalists to get moneyWhen asked Shibabrata about his maiden over he was afraid but yet modest to admit that he was not sure if HnS would ever work Also he admitted that his concept of HnS was actually a true copy of the business model of Airbnb mixed with a homestayShibabrata has been a wayfarer himself and traveled across the world before launching HnS He had discovered that the problem with budget hotels was bigger than just availability so to counter other issues he launched HnS Currently HnS accommodations are available in 20 cities in IndiaGurgaon Delhi Jim Corbett National Park Goa Kolkata Bangalore Mumbai Pune Noida Rishikesh Nainital Manali Shimla Jaisalmer amp Mussoorie