In the news: ZEN Rooms’ new pay-at-hotel feature, Amadeus’ expansion in Indonesia, new partnerships – Serko and HRS, Hotels.com with Standard Chartered
HOSPITALITY: ZEN ROOMS BRINGS CASH-ON-DELIVERY CONCEPT TO HOTEL BOOKING
ZEN Rooms offers cash-on-delivery option in booking rooms. (Image credit: ZEN Rooms)
ZEN Rooms, a leading online budget hotel franchise in Southeast Asia, has introduced a “transformational” pay-at-hotel, credit card-free feature for booking accommodation.
The hotel booking platform said this concept would “truly democratise travel and transform accommodation booking the way cash-on-delivery revolutionised e-commerce in recent years.”
It cited statistics to support why such an option is relevant in Southeast Asia – about three quarters of the region’s 438 population are still unbanked today; credit card penetration is very low with 74% of transactions still paid in cash.
“Then, why are credit cards still required for the majority of online transactions?,” it asked when announcing the new feature.
By introducing its pay-at-hotel feature, ZEN Rooms said it “becomes the first budget hotel chain in Southeast Asia to disrupt the status quo and allow 100% credit-card-free bookings.”
The only thing required to confirm a booking on www.zenrooms.com is a valid phone number. The pay-at-hotel option complements other payment methods available, such as credit card payment and bank transfer.
The company successfully tested the feature in the first quarter of this year, and subsequently rolled it out to over 500 ZEN Rooms locations across 50 cities in Southeast Asia including Bali, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Singapore, Manila, Boracay, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. In the next three months 1,000 more ZEN locations will be using this option.
Nathan Boublil, co-CEO of ZEN Rooms, said the pay-at-hotel feature removes a significant barrier to travel in Southeast Asia.
“We founded ZEN to change hospitality in the region for the better with a full customer-centric approach and this is one important step forward to allowing more people travel across the region, in line with our motto and mission ‘Travel More, Pay Less’”.
Nathan added that “since introducing the feature in our Q1 pilot, we saw a 100% increase in booking rate, above expectations.”
ZEN Rooms was launched in 2015, backed by German conglomerate Rocket Internet, Qatari telecoms provider Ooredoo and SBI Investments Korea. It specialises in providing value-for-money accommodation (hotels, B&Bs, guest houses, apartments) at affordable rates starting at US$10. The booking platform is present in Singapore (headquarters), Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong and Brazil.
Last month ZEN Rooms raised US$4.1 million in series A funding from Redbadge Pacific and SBI Investment Korea. Its existing investors Asia Pacific Internet Group, founded by Rocket, and Ooredoo, also participated. The new investment brings the company’s total funding to date to US$8 million.
TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY: AMADEUS EXPANDS IN INDONESIA WITH NEW OFFICES
New offices in Jakarta for Amadeus (Image credit: hanafichi/iStock)
Amadeus is boosting its presence in Indonesia with the opening of new offices in Jakarta, and adding specialised expertise to its local workforce.
This is the travel technology provider’s new phase of expansion in Indonesia, having entered the country in 2003 in a partnership with businessman and entrepreneur, MF Permadi.
While Amadeus will directly take over travel agency distribution sales and customer service activity from Permadi, both parties will continue to collaborate to localise technology in the market.
“Indonesia is on the cusp of a technological boom, fuelled by rising mobile penetration and one of Asia’s youngest populations. The nation’s emerging middle class is incredibly technology-savvy, and the local travel industry needs to be prepared to cater to these needs,” said Albert Pozo, president, Amadeus Asia Pacific.
Indonesia is currently the world’s fourth most populous country with almost 90 million air passengers, and will reach the same number of smartphone users by 2019.
CORPORATE TRAVEL: SERKO COLLABORATES WITH HRS, EXTENDS GLOBAL HOTEL CONTENT OFFERING
Expanded hotel content in Serko-HRS partnership (Image credit: cybrain/iStock)
Serko has formed a strategic partnership with HRS Global Hotel Solutions, to enhance its corporate hotel programmes.
The online travel booking and expense management solution provider, headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, said the agreement with HRS’ would make it “one of the single largest hotel metasearch platforms for corporate programmes.”
HRS’ global inventory includes 350,000 corporate-relevant hotels, 210,000 of which are independent properties.
Advantages from this partnership for Serko’s clients include booking their own negotiated rates and HRS’ exclusive corporate discounted rates through both Serko online and serko travel platforms; utilising HRS’ array of end-to-end service offerings to optimise their hotel programmes; and using HRS’ digital payment and integrated meetings management solutions.
Darrin Grafton, Serko CEO, said the partnership lays the foundatIon for the company to expand outside of Australasia, as well as “to continue to execute on our vision of a single platform that can book and change any travel source required by a business traveller.”
Joint customers of both companies will easy access to HRS’ global corporate hotel content through a single source incorporating the company’s exclusive discounts, as well as Australian and New Zealand hotel content from the Lido Group that it partnered in 2016.
ACCOMMODATION: HOTELS.COM PARTNERS STANDARD CHARTERED IN FIVE COUNTRIES
New partners: Booking.com and Standard Chartered
Hotels.com has formed a three-year strategic alliance with Standard Chartered, which offers the bank’s credit cardholders in five countries up to 12% off on hotel bookings.
The partnership covers Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and the UAE.
According to Abhiram Chowdhry, vice president, Asia Pacific and Latin America for Hotels.com the alliance gives the bank’s clients “access to useful travel information, offers and a wide variety of lodging and accommodation options.”
Neil Daswani, global head of corporate partnerships, retail banking, at Standard Chartered added its cardholders would benefit from access to a large number of properties and value-for-money deals.
• Featured image credit: ZEN Rooms
