HotelQuickly, the mobile-only last-minute hotel booking app, has recently announced its entry into Japan through the acquisition of domestic booking app called ‘Tonight’.

With this significant acquisition, HotelQuickly adds another 400 hotels in its list. Japan becomes the 16^th country to be associated with this hotel brand. The country’s recent relaxation of visa requirements for many nationalities has hastened the process of the acquisition.

Commenting on the same, Christian Mischler, Co-founder & COO of HotelQuickly, stated:

“Member feedback drives much of what we do at HotelQuickly, and our members told us Japan was one of the top three countries they want to visit this year. Recently relaxed visa requirements, as well as more affordable flights between Tokyo and our current markets is making spontaneous travel to Japan easier than ever.”

Elaborating on Japanese travel market, he said,

“The integration of Tonight will take place over several weeks. We’ve already opened deals at hotels in selected Japanese destinations, and will soon make our regional, last-minute hotel offers available to our Japanese members.”

Executives at HotelQuickly pointed out that moving into Japan was a logical next step and would open new possibilities for travellers within the region. Also, HotelQuickly is preparing to develop a translated Japanese version of the mobile app for the convenience of users.

Over the past three years, HotelQuickly’s has expanded rapidly to offer its customers attractively unmatched hotel deals in 250 Asia-Pacific destinations. It had successfully raised $5.66 million USD to date. HotelQuickly is already running successfully in 15 countries which include Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan. The top three countries in the number of partner hotels are Thailand, Indonesia and Australia.

As Japan is one of the major Southeast destinations for international travellers, HotelQuickly might increase its customer base at an exponential pace in the coming years. How will it fare in the near future is yet to be seen.  

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The last minute hotel booking segment has picked up recently in India with the emergence of Bangalore based mobile startup app, RoomsTonite. They have been in the news with the appointment of former AirBnB India, MD Mohit Srivastava as Chief of Revenues and Partnerships. Also, there is a probable Dubai launch in the pipeline later this year. Globally, the industry has been dominated by HotelTonight and Hong Kong based, HotelQuickly. HotelQuickly which started of simultaneously across six asian countries has made rapid strides in the APAC region and now boasts of presence in over 15 countries. Started by a team which includes, two ex-Rocket Internet executives — HotelQuickly had raised $4.5 million in funding last year.

We had the opportunity to chat with Niklas Olsson, the Marketing Director at HotelQuickly who spoke at length about the app’s journey till now and the road ahead.

The concept of last minute hotel booking has been tried out by a few. There are some who have actually shut-shop as well! What is the key driver for HotelQuickly’s rapid growth.

It’s easy to copy an app, but what you cannot see is how much is going on under the hood. The backend, the integration with hotels, the extranet, the localization with payment gateways, legal compliance in multiple countries, etc. is highly complex and takes a lot of time and expertise in order to master. The app takes about 5-10% of our dev work, the rest goes into what is not visible by the end-user’s eye. Travel is a highly competitive industry. You need to be really good at what you’re doing to be able to stand out and succeed. The ones that have folded didn’t master their niche.

HotelQuickly is quite often termed as a clone of HotelTonight. How does it feel to be referred that way?

Equally often Hotel Tonight is referred to as HotelQuickly concept in the US. It’s a matter of perspective.

It seems that you started with Thailand, which isn’t traditionally perceived as a launchpad for an emerging startup. Did you face any challenges in particular with your launch?

We’ve launched in six countries simultaneously, each one of them exhibiting its own challenges. The launch countries were Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Six countries, six languages, six different currencies. The challenges were countless, but luckily we had an experienced founding team and support in each of these countries to be aware of pitfalls and to succeed in a localized manner.

The co-founders in your team are spread across different cities. How do you communicate and overcome challenges across geographies.

We’re using the latest tools to communicate and track progress. The whole company is working on slack for written team communication. In addition, we use confluence, asana, jira, zoho, skype, dropbox, google drive, line, xero, and some other department-specific tools that mostly operate in the cloud and work location independent. We have 9 offices across the region. Whether we work remotely with one team or another doesn’t make a difference to our processes and to the company result. As a company policy, anyone can work from any office across APAC. Travel costs need to be covered personally, but we encourage the cross-country collaboration and personal interaction by means of travelling. We are a travel company after all!

Your growth in Asia has been a revelation of sorts. What do you think are the reasons for this trend?

Right time, right place, right concept. A lot comes from observing the trends and then act upon it. Don’t rest, iterate quickly, learn from mistakes and grow continuously. We’ve made countless mistakes along the way, but it was necessary to learn what works and what doesn’t.

We talked about it this one when we met at RISE You are not there in “India” yet which happens to be one of the biggest markets in Asia. Are you planning to enter sometime soon in 2015?

Since the beginning we’ve tried to be focused on a few things and do them really really well. It’s no different when it comes to geographies. While India might look like an attractive market for HotelQuickly, there are numerous challenges that need to be addressed prior to a market entry, in order to be able to succeed in such a large and diverse domestic market.

What’s your understanding of the online hotel booking space in India and the rest of SEA markets?

The markets are very diverse, professional yield management is not yet firmly established in many of these countries, especially with smaller hotel chains. This is something we’re actively helping hotels to master, as HotelQuickly is the perfect tool to optimize revenues per available room. The more mature markets are quicker in adopting HotelQuickly as the benefits are apparent, while in younger markets it takes a bit more time and education from our side. The infrastructure challenges are tremendous but the region is catching up with Western economies fairly quickly.

There have been talks and concerns about hotel loyalty being potentially eroded due to disruption in pricing with last minute bookings. Your take?

We don’t see this as a valid concern. Only if discounts are offered on public websites (like OTAs) the average daily rates could plummet and customers are educated to wait for the last minute to make a booking. As we’re curating our hotels and randomize the offers, we maintain brand loyalty and build our business upon illoyal, infrequent travellers who appreciate quality hotels with discounts, but are not looking for a particular hotel to stay at.

What sort of numbers are you raking in at the moment?

We’ll reach 1,500,000 downloads in about 1 month from now, we have almost 9,000 partner hotels in 250 destinations on the app at the moment. Growth has been very steady over the past 24 months.

One last thing which you’d like to say to TravHQ’s readers…

Download and try our app, redeem code CMISC1 for $30 AUD credit!

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If you have been following the Travel Startups section on TravHQ, by now you would have observed that the online travel industry isn’t just about the OTAs & Airbnbs of the world. There are many travel startups that are shaking various segments of the industry such as trip planning services, hotel bookings apps or even exploring offbeat destinations with locals.

We interacted with an exciting lineup of travel startups on Day 1 at RISE 2015. Our experience on Day 2 with few others, further echoes our belief that this industry is poised to grow at a revolutionary pace, faster than one would imagine.

These startups are solving unique problems either on the consumer side or on the business side. Like most startups, this ride is not going to be a cakewalk as they will face questions about scale, competition and even whether consumer actually needs their services. However, events like RISE, do provide the right platform for these startups to do a self check, understand what they are doing right or wrong with mentorship from peers in the industry. We are enthralled to have connected with so many young startups who are determined to make it big. We have interviewed many of them on Periscope and will very soon have a YouTube feed for you.

Here is a round-up of the travel startups we met on the Day 2 of the RISE Conference.

Singapore based travel startup Travelog offers smart mobile city guides to plan your trips

Hotel Quickly saves travellers time and money by offering dynamic deals at the best hotels in Asia-Pacific

Ireland’s Weestay is a mash-up of CouchSurfing + Airbnb with no cost. In a nutshell, it helps you to find free stay.

Singapore’s Nothing to Hide wants to revolutionise the untapped hotel review segment by providing hoteliers free WiFi in exchange for hotel reviews.

Operating from Hong Kong, Klook is your gateway to find out the best activities to do in Asia.

We will be digging into some of these startups, taking them for a spin and come back with our detailed review sometime soon.

For those who missed the RISE Conference this year, here is why you should definitely attend the next one in 2016 and the Web Summit later this year.

• RISE is your passport to meet like-minded folks such as investors, mentors, potential job seekers and competing startups and the media to share your story  In addition, such events give you the perfect opportunity to identify right partners with whom you can explore collaboration and expand your array of services.
• Other than the exhibiting startups, there are separate tracks such as the Marketing track, Development track and more depending on your industry interests. While 2 days aren’t enough, try to learn and absorb as much as you can.
• Post event networking parties are again a great way to meet more people and talk over some drinks.
• Lastly, it happens in Hong Kong which is located just about 5 hours from India

You can find more updates from RISE here.

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The much awaited 2 day Rise Conference kicks-off in Hong Kong next week on July 31 – August 1 2015 at the HKCC (Hong Kong Convention Centre). For those of you are not aware, RISE is the first ever tech-summit in Asia brought to you by the same team that organizes Web Summit, held annually in Dublin every November. The event gives a fantastic opportunity to hear and meet exciting startups from across the globe that are solving business & consumer problems.

The inaugural edition of RISE conference also has a line-up of Travel startups from countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, USA and Australia. Here is our ultimate list of 7 startups exhibiting their travel prowess at RISE.

Image Credits: Rise Conference Facebook Page

Travelog.me, Singapore

Singapore based Travelog is an iPhone only mobile travel guide helping you to plan your next trip in an easy way. By downloading the app, you can join a community of like-minded travellers, bloggers, local experts and receive tailored recommendations on top things to do.

We will be keen to understand how are they are different from similar services and where exactly do they fit in the traveller’s cycle?

Wanderlust, Australia

Australian startup, Wanderlust claims to build a travel tribe consisting of strangers from different countries enabling travellers to take help when in need. Can they change they way we travel? We’ll find out at RISE

Jamjar, Australia

Another startup from Australia, Jamjar is a travel discovery app for the explorers who are on a constant quest to find out the most happening places. They seem to be focussed on the Australian region for now but we will be keen to chat-up with the Jamjar team for more info.

Klook, Hong Kong

Representing host country Hong Kong, Klook caught our attention from the list. They are providing unique travel experiences across entire APAC at discounted rates. For instance, Bicycling experience at Kyoto or exploring Bangkok on a Scooter.

However, the competition seems to be very high for services providing offbeat and custom travel experiences. We will know Klook’s future roadmap soon.

Weestay, Hong Kong

Weestay is also from Hong Kong and their single line pitch is that they combine CouchSurfing & Airbnb removing the element of cost from between. Simply speaking, you can find free accommodation via network of your friends using Weestay.

Their focus seems to be backpackers who are on a shoe-string budget. Who else are they targeting? We’ll learn more at RISE.

HotelQuickly, Hong Kong

HotelQuickly is the Uber for hotels in APAC providing last minute dynamic deals on your bookings. We had recently reviewed an Indian startup RoomsTonite that seems to be pretty similar in-terms of overall offering. More on HotelQuickly coming your way pretty soon!

Tripverse, USA

Completing the list is Tripverse, a travel startup coming all the way from United States. Tripverse is an offline readable itinerary viewer that makes creating, viewing, and sharing travel plans simple and easy. There is no dearth of itinerary planning apps but we are optimistic that Tripverse has a unique positioning and target market. We’ll discover more of that, when we catch-up.

So if you are a travel startup coming to RISE, we will be keen to meet you in person, hear your stories and understand how you are making tripping experience better  If we have missed you out from the above list, please drop us a note at editor@travhq.com.

You can find more updates from RISE here.

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