Highlights:
- Yanolja, Korea’s billion dollar travel group, double down on ZEN Rooms one year after investing US$15M in 2018. Through this transaction, Yanolja is investing additional funds in the Company, purchasing stakes from early investors and announcing a wide strategic alliance between the two groups
- ZEN joins forces with one of the most technologically innovative travel groups and its backers Booking Holdings to create the first full service budget & mid-range hospitality group in SEA
- ZEN will heavily deploy technology to continue to improve Southeast Asia’s hospitality sector, enhance customer experience and lower hotels’ operating costs
- ZEN has achieved market leading customer satisfaction ratings in its franchise business, quadrupled revenue in the past year and became in Q4 2018 the largest hotel chain in the Philippines
Singapore, October 16th 2019 -- ZEN Rooms (“ZEN”, “Company”), one of the leading economy and mid-range hotel franchises in Southeast Asia, today announced it had signed a definitive agreement with travel group Yanolja regarding additional investment, acquisition of early investors’ stakes and the signing of a wide strategic alliance. Yanolja is the leading travel group in South Korea, backed by Booking Holdings and GIC, among others. Yanolja was the lead strategic investor in the company’s US$15M funding round in 2018, with rights to invest further. Early investor Asia Internet Holdings (Joint Venture of Rocket Internet and Ooredoo Telecom) has agreed to exit its stake to Yanolja. RedBadge Pacific and SBI Korea remain investors, and Access Ventures join as co-investors.
The
alliance of ZEN and Yanolja creates the leading economy &
mid-range hospitality group in Southeast Asia. It combines ZEN’s
top-rated budget hotel franchise business with Yanolja’s scale,
hospitality technologies and the backing by the global leader in
Online Travel, Booking Holdings (behind Booking.com, Agoda,
Priceline.com, Kayak etc), thus granting ZEN unique competitive
advantages in both hotel technology and sales distribution. The
groups will work to heavily deploy automation technology to enhance
customer experience, further reduce budget hotels’ operating costs
and reinvent budget hospitality across Southeast Asia.
ZEN Rooms is today one of
the largest hotel franchises in Southeast Asia, with 13,000 rooms
under franchise. Since Yanolja’s investment in mid 2018, ZEN has
grown revenues 400% and has become in Q2 2019 the largest hotel chain
in fast-emerging Philippines, with 5,500 rooms under franchise.
Southeast Asia is today
the world’s fastest growing travel market, fueled by exponential
domestic and regional demand of young travelers and millennials (e.g.
the number of Chinese visitors has quadrupled in the past decade[1]).
Yet, the value-for-money proposition of its budget hotel sector has
historically been defective, plagued by several issues:
fragmentation, poor hygiene & safety standards, lack of training
and low technology use.
ZEN was founded in 2015
to improve the state of budget hospitality and bring much needed
operational and technological efficiency to the estimated 2 million
independent economy rooms in the region. Thousands of hotel owners
have since joined ZEN’s franchises to improve their revenue,
optimize their cost base and increase the long-term value of their
property. These efficiency gains ultimately benefit travelers who can
enjoy safer and better value-for-money stays.
With a deep emphasis on
customer satisfaction, ZEN franchisees have enjoyed the best average
guest ratings on Booking.com for two years in a row.
Nathan Boublil,
co-founder & CEO of ZEN, comments: “We started ZEN exactly 4
years ago to make budget accommodation in Southeast Asia more
affordable and safer. We have proudly built ZEN into the top-rated
budget hotel franchise in the region and were honored to be Yanolja’s
1st international investment. With this strategic alliance, we are
joining forces with one of the most technologically innovative travel
groups and its unique backers Booking Holdings to create the first
full service budget & mid-range hospitality group in SEA, able to
deploy world-class technology infrastructure in IoT R&D,
automation, hardware and software to all hotels in Southeast Asia.
This alliance will greatly benefit our ability to serve our hotel
clients and ultimately the travelers of the entire region”.
Jongyoon Kim, CEO of
Online Business at Yanolja, adds: “Since first investing in ZEN, we
have shared the same vision of operational excellence and customer
centricity to radically improve the SE Asian hospitality market. In
the last 12 months, the ZEN team has taken major steps to fulfill
this vision and has grown exponentially while displaying top
inventory quality. With this exciting agreement, Yanolja plans to
fully support ZEN to solidify its status as the market leading
full-stack hospitality company in the region".
For enquiries, contact: Nathan Boublil, co-Founder & CEO - nathan@zenrooms.com ; Nika Plana, PR - nika.plana@zenrooms.com
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