Smart Order Partners with Booking.com to Elevate Global Reach for Chinese Hospitality Providers
On November 27-29, 2024, Booking.com, the leading online travel agency (OTA), visited Smart Order HQ in Hangzhou to explore deeper collaboration opportunities. The two companies engaged in productive discussions around seamless integration with Booking.com, including the comprehensive technical assessment, analysis of user pain points, and the development of a collaborative implementation plan.
To better serve the global market, Smart Order has formed a strategic partnership with Booking.com. Together, we will work closely with Booking.com's team to develop seamless integration technology, prioritizing user experience and enabling Chinese hospitality providers to efficiently onboard onto the Booking.com platform.
As a global partner of Booking.com, Smart Order is committed to providing comprehensive and intelligent channel management solutions tailored to the needs of Chinese hospitality providers, empowering them to expand their global reach and grow the inbound tourism market.
Smart Order CEO & Founder, Shen Aixiang, delivered an in-depth introduction about the company's PMS system, detailing its core features and technological advancements. Shen also highlighted Smart Order's intelligent suite of hardware solutions, including smart locks, self-check-in machines, catering machines and charging stations.
During the visit, Booking.com’s team gained deep insights into Smart Order's product capabilities, technological innovations, and customer success stories, expressing high praise and recognition for Smart Order's practices in the hospitality SaaS industry and hotel intelligent hardware sector.
Delving into Smart Order’s core business, Shen, also analyzed the opportunities and market potential of international channels based on the inbound tourism policy, and Smart Order's unique ability to establish channel integrations from scratch.
Over the past year, China has been steadily increasing the number of visa-free countries for its citizens. While outbound tourism has seen significant growth, the inbound tourism market still presents immense potential. Booking.com remains the top platform for international travelers searching for accommodations in China. Over 1,000 merchants using Smart Order have already received international bookings, and nearly 100 merchants have completed direct connections to overseas channels within just three weeks of joining the platform.
Overseas guests not only book luxury hotels but also have a great demand for domestic economy hotels or boutique hotels. Through this cooperation, both parties will help different types of hotel and B&Bs merchants easily go online to the Booking.com channel, realizing the export of Chinese accommodation products, cultural and tourism experiences.
Booking.com Product Manager Summer Guan said: " We share a common goal of empowering Chinese hotels and B&Bs to succeed on the Booking.com platform. Through our tech solutions, we will allow Smart Order merchants to complete the configuration of room types, prices, and other information in the PMS, independently complete the online listing of Booking.com properties, and provide a smooth OTA connection experience for more Chinese hotel and B&Bs merchants."
Smart Order Co-founder & Product R&D Head Wu Haonan introduced the user journey of merchants in the Smart Order PMS, demonstrating the workflow model from multiple dimensions such as channel direct connection, room type creation, and pricing plans, and shared the user feedback currently collected.
Booking.com Senior User Experience Consultant Camille Gribbons agreed: "I am impressed by the UI of the Smart Order PMS, and I can feel that the product design of Smart Order is truly based on user experience. We will focus on the PMS functions of Smart Order through the SEA program (Seamless Experience Accelerator) and develop a series of targeted technical solutions to jointly provide 100% seamless experience for Smart Order users."
After two days of in-depth communication and solution discussion, Smart Order will work with Booking.com to provide a deeply integrated solution for domestic hotel and B&B merchants.
In addition to technical cooperation, Booking.com Asia Pacific Market Manager Anthony and China Market Manager Catherine also shared the current customer structure and platform mechanism of Booking.com with everyone and conducted in-depth discussions on business cooperation plans with Smart Order.
In Booking.com’s inbound tourism orders, overseas guests account for as much as 90%, with the highest proportion coming from European and American countries. From the perspective of the source country market, Booking.com is the OTA with the most diverse customer sources in foreign countries, which can effectively help merchants open up the global market.
Catherine shared some insights into consumer behavior on Booking.com: "Foreign guests tend to be well-planned, stay longer on average, and have a higher purchasing power. As a result, Booking.com can help domestic merchants secure high-quality, long-term bookings. Especially during major events like the Canton Fair, Booking.com experiences peak traffic, and many merchants start receiving a large number of overseas orders a month in advance."
Both parties will further implement the details of the solution and work together to open up a new chapter in the global digital development of China's B&B and hotel channels.
