Leading Chinese e-commerce platform Meituan-Dianping has unveiled the launch of Meituan Travel, a new travel service integrating four of its business units in accommodation, domestic travel, outbound travel and transportation services.
The unified platform features more than 340,000 hotels in China and 200,000 globally.
Domestic travel offerings cover 400 cities and more than 20,000 attractions across China and Meituan-Dianping’s app is among the top three most used apps for Chinese tourists travelling overseas.
It also offers deals on flights, rail and boat tickets, and travel insurance.
"Meituan-Dianping’s distinctive business model enables us to quickly develop and integrate innovative services that meet our consumers’ aspirations", said Liang Chen, senior vice president of Meituan-Dianping and president of its travel and leisure business group.
"With Meituan Travel, we are going to be able to gradually direct our hundreds of millions of consumers to this new segment by providing them with a convenient, efficient, high-quality service encompassing every aspect of a successful travel experience."
The ultimate aim of the newly integrated service is to provide a one-stop travel platform using automated services and intelligent solutions to optimise the user experience.
It recently moved into the B&B sharing market with the launch of the Hazelnut B&B app, and has targeted 150,000 properties for this segment by the end of 2017.
"China’s travel industry is rapidly growing and constantly evolving as Chinese travellers seek new, dynamic, and high-quality experiences. Our platform enables us to engage consistently with our consumers, meet their evolving demands," Liang said.
