1. Ctrip enters hotel management space

Ctrip has now a hotel management brand - Rezen Hotels Group - that aims to bring together top-rated hotels in China's first- and second-tier cities and help them improve performance and services with big data analysis backed by Ctrip.

In the next three years, they will launch over 30 co-branded hotels, providing more than 6,000 rooms. The launch of Rezen Hotels, Ctrip's first high-end hotel brand, marks the group's strategy to branch out to the high star-rating hotel sector.

Full story at Tnooz.

2. Shiji continues blazing acquisition trail with Concept purchase

Shiji has recently acquired Concept Software Systems, a provider of golf, spa and activities management systems for luxury hotels which is uniquely integrated with hotel property management systems.

Concept Software Systems will integrate with the Shiji Group as a fully owned subsidiary and as a Shiji Group company.

Full story at Shiji.

3. Accor strengthens in Asia, hits 1,000

With the recent opening of Pullman Tokyo Tamachi, AccorHotels has past the 1,000 hotels and 200,000 rooms milestone in Asia Pacific, underscoring the group's belief in the growth potential of the region.

Asia Pacific now makes up more than 30% of the entire AccorHotels global network and more than half of the total room and hotel pipeline. In the past three years, AccorHotels' Asia Pacific network has doubled in size through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions of brands including Raffles, Orient Express, Fairmont, Banyan Tree, Delano, Mondrian, SLS, Swissotel and Movenpick.

Full story at Hotel Management

4. Affluent travellers from China taking to mobile for travel bookings

The growing affluent traveling community from China are taking to the mobile platform for travel bookings. This means more domestic travel apps like Zanadu and SparkleTour will be focusing on the mobile platform to meet their customers where they are. More than half of travellers booked trips online in 2017, according to a September report from China-based research agency Yaok Institute.

Other popular travel apps in China include HHtravel, 8 Continents Travel, and Beshan.

Full story at Jing Daily

5. Next Story Group makes its move into Sri Lanka

Next Story Group has entered Sri Lanka with two of its brands - Next Hotel Colombo and Kafnu Colombo, both slated for third quarter 2019 openings. Next Hotel Colombo is located in the Colombo City Centre, a premier lifestyle destination in Sri Lanka. Jointly owned and developed by Next Story Group and the Abans Group, Colombo City Centre is a mixed-use development which consists of a Next Hotel, luxury apartments and the first international shopping mall in the country.

Full story at Travel Daily News.

6. Oyo's $5 billion valuation overrated?

Oyo, an Indian-based budget chain hotel, is hardly budget when it comes to its fundraising. It recently raised $800 million, with its investors pledging a further $200 million. This latest round of fundraising has placed an approximately $5 billion valuation on the company, said some reports.

Other investors are now weighing in on this latest news, at least one saying it is "overvalued" for a company with "no real underlying assets". What's for certain is this has caused hotel chains to look carefully at their strategic plans for the new world's giants namely India and Chian.

Full story at Skift.

7. South-east Asia is boomtown with travel business worth US$50 billion

With a compound annual growth of 27% year-on-year, South-east Asia boasts a US$50 billion travel business and four key industries that are driving the growth are online travel, e-commerce, online media, transport and food, according to Google's head of travel Asia Pacific Hermione Joye who spoke at the recently concluded WiT Singapore 2018.

The online travel sector is now at US$27 billion business but growing fast at 18%. With only 35% of bookings now done online, the opportunity is vast. And Google says what its customers there want is speed, engagement and personalisation.

Full story at WebinTravel.com

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About Duetto

Duetto delivers a suite of SaaS cloud-native applications for hospitality businesses to optimize every booking opportunity for greater revenue impact. The unique combination of hospitality experience and technology leadership drives Duetto to look for innovative solutions to industry challenges. The software as a service platform allows hotels, casinos, and resorts to leverage real-time dynamic data sources and actionable insights into pricing and demand across the enterprise. For more information, please visit https://www.duettocloud.com/