As part of this, the company plans to double the number of directly contracted hotels by the end of the year, reaching 74,000 hotel properties around the world available to its clients – up from around 37,000 hotel properties at the end of 2021.
This plan forms part of a successful pivot to direct contracting over the last few years led by DidaTravel’s Senior Vice President, Abba Lee, who is based in Hong Kong and joined the company in March 2019.
With over 140 global, regional and local hotel chains and more than 3,000 independent hotels in various destinations already in partnership with DidaTravel, Abba and his team is has a pipeline of more than 30 worldwide hotel chains and over 2,000 major hotels ready to connect in 2022.
Under his leadership further direct contracting effort and focus will be deployed in key popular destinations to fulfill targeted growth in the next three years in the UAE, UK, France and Italy – as well as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and Korea within the APAC region.
With a strong distribution roadmap in place, hotel partners will benefit from access to not only B2B clients in China and the wider APAC region – which the company is well known for – but also in Europe, the USA and the Middle East, which together now represent 50% of all sales.
Hotels can easily access over 23,000 hard-to-reach B2B clients such as airline websites and loyalty schemes, bank loyalty programs, mobile and social media platforms and applications – plus travel agencies, tour operators, wholesalers, OTAs, and travel management companies (TMCs).
Rikin Wu, DidaTravel Founder & CEO said, “Abba and his team are doing a fantastic job ensuring that our directly contracted hotel partners gain exclusive access to the sales channels and source markets best suited to them. But they are also great at giving hotel partners access to our technical strengths and expertise, such as our network of the best hotel technology connectivity partners and leading content mapping solutions.”
Abba Lee, Senior Vice President, Sourcing at DidaTravel comments: “As the recovery of tourism has begun, more and more hotels are showing interest in the benefits of a direct contract relationship with DidaTravel. This is the best time ever to be connected and prepared for the full recovery, in particular, the opening of China outbound when that eventually happens. Apart from promoting their hotel rooms, this year we will be adding value to partners by providing them with more in-depth market data & insights via our upcoming BI reports. By doing so, we can work closely with hotels to come up with the best strategies for targeting the right sales channels and accurate pricing suggestions along with the right marketing tools."
Tags: DidaTravel
