Hotel B2B online direct sales platform Ziztour announced it received funding to the tune of 100 million yuan from investors led by Legend Holding’s Juncheng Capital in its A Series financing round.
So for, hotel bookings by business clients such as tour operators, MICE event organizers and corporate clients are mainly carried via traditional methods like telephone or fax, with almost no online link up.
Such traditional transaction methods are not efficient and force hotels to rely on wholesale brokers to make up for their limited sales capacity. The presence of middlemen not only cut into hotel’s profit but also lead to other problems such as disruption to hotel channel pricing systems.
Ziztour’s business model is similar to taxi hailing app Didi Taxi’s — users immediately get a solicitation list after entering their booking requirements and budget. All the hotels that match the requirements in the solicitation list will then send their quotes in to users who will review multiple quotations and choose the most satisfactory one. The transaction is concluded online, and payment and invoice collection are conducted offline after checkout.
The entire process is highly efficient — it not only saves time and manpower but also revolutionizes the user experience. Unlike agency-type websites, Ziztour offers totally transparent unhindered channels on a free online platform. Hotel sales departments can even see real-time booking transactions of similar hotels on Ziztour’s platform and participate in bidding with live B2B communication.
Ziztour also has an app where registered hotel users can take orders. Hotel sales departments can use the app to check orders and provide quotations anytime from a smartphone. This app not only assists hotel sales teams improve their job efficiency but also helps solve hotels’ vacancy issues.(Translation by David)
