Ctrip Invests in Hotel Booking App Developer
iMeigu, 5/23/13
Ctrip (Nasdaq: CTRP) VP Tang Lan said today that the Chinese online travel service provider has made a strategic investment in motel-booking app Kuaijie Jiudian Guanjia (literally, "Express Hotel Manager"), but has not acquired the app as had been reported. Kuaijie Jiudian Guanjia will continue to be independently operated following the investment, though it will beef up its cooperation with Ctrip.
Kuaijie Jiudian Guanjia was developed by Huoli Tianhui Technology, which in 2009 released "Hangban Guanjia" (literally, "Flight Manager"), a flight status lookup app that has since been installed more than 10 mln times. Huoli Tianhui followed up with "Jiudian Guanjia" ("Hotel Manager"), a hotel-booking app, and in October 2010 released Kuaijie Jiudian Guanjia, a booking app with a narrower focus on "express hotels." Huoli Tianhui subsequently changed the name of "Jiudian Guanjia" to "Lian Jiudian." The company continues to offer all three apps, as well as an app for high-speed rail ticket booking.
Ctrip's investment is restricted to Kuaijie Jiudian Guanjia. Tang Lan declined to reveal the amount of the investment. When asked whether or not Ctrip's investment had been in the eight-figure USD range reported elsewhere, Tang said only that "things are very expensive nowadays."
Huoli Tianhui received USD 5 mln in first-round funding from Sequoia Capital in early 2011, and another USD 15 mln in second-round funding led by Matrix Partners and Greylock in late 2011.
Originally headquartered in Beijing, Huoli Tianhui moved to Shanghai in 2012. Data for the company's first product, Hangban Guanjia, initially came from VeryZhun, a flight-tracking app developed by Feeyo.com with investment from Ctrip. The company's database of hotel products currently contains listings from online travel service provider eLong (Nasdaq: LONG), with customer feedback and ratings from Daodao.com, the China subsidiary of TripAdvisor. Ctrip will partner with other Huoli Tianhui products following its new investment in the company, Tang said.
Editor's Note: In a telephone interview with Marbridge, Chen Guangwei, Business Cooperation Manager for Huoli Tianhui's Kuaijie Jiudian Guanjia product, noted that various rumors that the application alternately handled either 30,000 room nights per day or 30,000 per month were all inaccurate, with the correct figure being roughly 100,000 room nights per month (i.e. ~3,300 room nights per day). For more information on this topic, please see "Flight Tracking Mobile App to Provide Air Ticketing Services," MD 10/30/12 issue.
Keywords: Tang Lan Kuaijie Jiudian Guanjia hotel Internet funding investment Ctrip online travel CTRP Huoli Tianhui mobile application online ticketing
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