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by contingencies 3497 days ago
From about 2005-2009 I founded a hotel reservation platform in direct competition to CTrip and ELong, both of whom were already Nasdaq listed with deep pockets. I successfully grew the business to the same network size as the competitors on a shoestring budget through automation, undercutting them on almost every property, and even offered services in six human languages (they almost managed 2). We received rave reviews from users, most of whom were local. The problem was, I didn't have the capital for a marketing budget, every advertising channel we tried had very low returns, and I was not confident enough to seek capital domestically. I still think there is loads of room for alternative booking platforms here in China, but the up-front capital costs to buy in to a large enough audience remain fairly significant.
2 comments
paradite 3496 days ago
What do you think of the current competitors like Tuniu.com and Qunar.com?
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contingencies 3496 days ago
Qunar was a travel meta-search engine in those days; we used to pay them to list our inventory. Their API was quite shoddy. We stopped paying them, because it didn't make sense (we paid more for less business in return than was profitable). They then turned around and started offering the same services other companies used to offer and advertise through them... after they'd taken everyone's listing and price data. I personally find that a questionable change of model which would have caused legal havoc in a western context, not so in China. Tuniu I am unfamiliar with.
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fatman13gg 3496 days ago
> From about 2005-2009 I founded a hotel reservation platform in direct competition to CTrip and ELong

So it's hotels only? No flights, cars etc?

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contingencies 3496 days ago
Yep. Flights in China are routed through a single government clearing house not multiple commercial systems as per the west. In addition, at that time tickets still required physical delivery to the customer. Therefore, we considered it was too much hassle to go through the government approvals in order to compete with established local providers, a market which remains very fragmented. Car rental is beginning to take off now, but was exceptionally rare at that time.
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ck425 3496 days ago
See comments: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/24/skyscanner-...
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contingencies 3496 days ago
Didn't see anything in there, despite reading two pages. Perhaps you could be more specific?
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ck425 3496 days ago
Apologies, replied to wrong comment. Meant to reply to comment mentioning negative opinions to a Chinese firm buying a Scottish one.
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