The leading global hotel wholesaler aims to increase the number of direct contract hotels by end of 2022 to reach 74,000 – with over 30 hotel chains and over 2,000 major hotels in the pipeline ready to go onboard
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DidaTravel will capitalise on its successful pivot to direct contracting hotels with an ambitious plan to double the number of such hotels by the end of the year, reaching 74,000 hotel properties around the world made available to its clients – up from around 37,000 hotel properties at the end of 2021.
The strategic shift over the last few years was led by DidaTravel’s senior vice president, sourcing, Abba Lee, who is based in Hong Kong and joined the company in March 2019.
Apart from having over 140 global, regional and local hotel chains and more than 3,000 independent hotels in various destinations already in partnership with DidaTravel, Lee and his team now also secured a pipeline of more than 30 worldwide hotel chains and over 2,000 major hotels that are ready to connect in 2022.
Under his leadership, focus on the direct contracting efforts will be deployed in key popular destinations to fulfil targeted growth in the next three years in the UAE, UK, France and Italy, as well as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea within the Asia Pacific region.
With a strong distribution roadmap in place, hotel partners will benefit from access to not only B2B clients in China and the wider Asia Pacific region – which the company is well known for – but also in Europe, the USA and the Middle East, which now collectively represent 50 per cent of all sales.
The contracted hotels can also easily access over 23,000 hard-to-reach B2B clients such as airline websites and loyalty schemes, bank loyalty programmes, mobile and social media platforms and applications, as well as travel agencies, tour operators, wholesalers, online travel agencies (OTAs), and travel management companies (TMCs).
Rikin Wu, DidaTravel founder and chief executive officer 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. This partnership will also give our hotel partners an opportunity to tap into our technical strengths and expertise, such as our network of the best hotel technology connectivity partners and leading content mapping solutions.”
With the tourism recovery, more and more hotels are keen to develop a direct contract relationship with DidaTravel due to the numerous benefits, according to Lee.
He added: “This is the best time 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 and insights via our upcoming BI (Business intelligence) 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.”
Founded in 2012, DidaTravel is headquartered in Shenzhen, China and has over 300 staff in eight offices globally. The company works with over 23,000 travel buying clients around the world, including travel agencies, tour operators, wholesalers, OTAs, TMCs and airlines.
Additionally, the company has a portfolio of over 37,000 competitively sourced direct hotel contracts as of end of 2021, as well as 700,000 hotel products provided by about 600 global suppliers, covering more than 200 countries and regions.
Prior to the pandemic, DidaTravel sold hotel bookings in China and the Asia Pacific region worth over USD700 million in 2019.
To find out how to tap into DidaTravel’s extensive network of travel agencies, tour operators, wholesalers, OTAs, TMCs, airlines and hotels, visit www.didatravel.com.
