In the news: Roomorama’s new partnership with Tuija, TripAdvisor’s news sites for Hong Kong, white paper on APAC hospitality industry
Roomorama, Tujia team up to tap China’s large outbound travel market
An apartment in Paris listed on Roomorama’s website. (Image credit: Roomorama)
There were 120 million outbound tourists from China in 2015 who spent a total of US$104.5 billion – an increase of 12% and 16.7% respectively from 2014 – according to statistics from the China National Tourism Bureau.
The bureau forecast that China’s outbound tourism has tremendous potential as it is currently enjoying rapid growth.
This growing outbound market has attracted vacation rental and short-term accommodation aggregator, Roomorama, and online booking platform, Tujia to form a partnership to tap it.
Roomorama said in a statement that its cooperation with Tujia was timely as they aimed to capture the increasing demand for alternative accommodations for Chinese travellers abroad.
As part of the deal Roomorama will offer its instantly-bookable properties around the world to Tujia’s customers, giving them greater ease and convenience of booking alternative accommodations outside of China.
The accommodation aggregator said it had started feeding its properties into Tujia’s platform to help boost the latter’s “competitiveness against Airbnb in areas where the former has better inventory”.
Federico Folcia, Roomorama’s CEO, said Tujia was the “perfect partner” for the company in China as it was a familiar brand to Chinese travellers.
“There is a lot of synergy in the cooperation between Tujia and Roomorama, as the Chinese traveller is becoming more independent and savvy, and wants accommodation options that are different from the usual cookie-cutter hotels.”
Luo Jun, co-founder and CEO of Tujia, added that with the rapid growth of China’s outbound market the cooperation between Tujia and Roomorama was a natural trend.
“Roomorama’s influence and properties overseas will greatly enhance Tujia’s overseas market; in return, Tujia will drive more demand to Roomorama’s properties. Chinese travelers are in pursuit of unique overseas travel experiences, and they can find this through the Roomorama-Tujia cooperation.”
TripAdvisor’s new sites for Hong Kong travellers
TripAdvisor has two new sites for Hong Kong travellers. (Image: Hong Kong on a clear day)
Global search engine, TripAdvisor, has launched two new sites to provide Hong Kong travellers with a more comprehensive and convenient way to research, plan and book their trips.
The two new sites in Traditional Chinese and English – tripadvisor.com.hk and en.tripadvisor.com.hk – have been rolled out with instant booking. This enables travellers to read reviews and other travel content in their preferred language, as well as book a hotel on desktop and mobile web without leaving the TripAdvisor site.
This capability will be rolled out to mobile app soon, said the company in a media statement.
TripAdvisor said he traditional Chinese domain, which features TripAdvisor’s Chinese brand name Mao Tu Ying (貓途鷹), is also a further effort to provide the global Chinese community with “a unique, trusted and more relevant planning and booking experience for their travels”.
Aaron Hung, TripAdvisor’s director of partnerships, Asia Pacific, said: “Hong Kong residents made over 85 million trips overseas last year, so we’re pleased to offer more localised content that will not only help them better plan their trips but also help them make their bookings instantly.”
TripAdvisor currently operates across 48 markets worldwide and in 28 languages. Its international Arabic language domain (ar.tripadvisor.com) and the two Hong Kong domains are the latest to join the ranks.
The company has rolled out instant booking globally and has recently expanded the feature to Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, India, Australia and New Zealand.
Hotels available through the instant booking platform feature a prominent “Book Now” button, allowing users to easily complete their reservation with any property available on TripAdvisor.
White paper on growth opportunities for APAC hospitality industry
New white paper on APAC hospitality industry. (Image credit – Ibis Bencoolen Singapore: AccorHotels.com)
FIU’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management (CSHTM) and its Institute for Hospitality & Tourism Education & Research (IHTER) has released a white paper, “Driving Future Growth and Profitability: Asia 2020”.
This white paper delivers key outcomes on the issues and opportunities discussed at the Visionary Leaders Roundtable in Singapore that was presented by FASTBOOKING, ForwardKeys, and Rainmaker.
It provides the hospitality industry ideas on what can be done to address the challenges to stay relevant, competitive and profitable.
The white paper is authored by Simone Champagnie, executive director – development, at Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at Florida International University (FIU); Nathan Dodge, visiting professor at Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management; and Christine Toguchi, managing director at MacroVision Network Pte Ltd and project consultant for IHTER.
Download the white paper in English here.
• Featured image credit (Villa in Hua Hin, Thailand): Roomorama
