Chinese outdoor leisure and sports tournaments organizer Huway has received RMB40 million (approx: US$6.44 million) from Mango Haitong Creative Arts Investment Fund in its A Series financing round.
Huway’s founder and CEO Haifeng Zhang said Huway is currently the largest group platform for outdoor activity and tournaments, with decades of experience as a large-scale offline event organizer.
It now produces over half of all the large-scale outdoor activities and tournaments in China, including 100 major branded events such as the Tiger Mountain International Camping Festival, Wugongshan International Camping Festival, Shizhu Chongqing International Camping Festival, Suzhou Rainbow Run and the China-Myanmar International Marathon.
Huways’s COO Xiaoning Wang, who has studied many years in France, points out that tourism development trends in the West shows that tourism is about experience ultimately, and travelers will be looking for individualized and tailored itineraries that integrate immersive experiences with outdoor excursions with social elements. Outdoor activities will soon become a top choice for travelers, and outdoor leisure travel will become a driver of change in China’s tourism industry.
Mr. Zhang thinks the direction of Huway’s future development is extremely clear – that it will channel the millions of members of 10,000 partner clubs accumulated over the past decade to online activities, and attract more outdoor clubs and outdoor travelers to join its outdoor leisure travel eco-system and develop an equivalent of Tmall (Alibaba’s high-end online marketplace) for the outdoor leisure travel sector.
Funding from Huway’s first investment round will be mainly used for promoting its three main online platforms. Its B2B OTA platform offers cross-platform reservations, membership exchange, membership management, data analysis and operational support to Huway’s partner outdoor clubs.
Its B2C app platform provides things-to-do solutions for outdoor travelers by offering outdoor club search via location-based service, outdoor trails and activity registration, interaction with club members, trip commentary and chat. Its tournaments management platform provides open registration to upgrade the quality of activities for participants.(Translation by David)
