“It’s still early days in online travel in Vietnam and there’s a lot to do,” he said.

Despite Covid having brought Vietnam’s travel industry to a standstill – “there is no travel right now”, he said – the group remains confident about travel’s future. A surge in Delta variant cases has resulted in Ho Chi Minh and other cities in Vietnam being placed under the strictest lockdowns since the pandemic started, grounding domestic travel.

VNTRAVEL has used the downtime during Covid to strengthen its content and product. “Hotels need us more than ever and we are making sure we push ahead,” he said. “We have upgraded our recommendation engines and improved algorithms for customizing of client base.”

It is also rolling out Tripi One, a corporate platform, Tripi C-Suite, a premium booking platform as well as Mytour Event, an events management platform that will match the demand for events and parties with hotel partners. “Hotels love that business,” he said.

In July, VNTRAVEL signed an agreement with South Korean hospitality software provider, Yanolja Cloud, to provide its technology to hotels in Vietnam to enable digital check-in and check-out, contactless payments, and other services.

“The global experience and perspective they can bring to further support our growth ambitions is very exciting. Given a rapidly growing digital consumer base in the country, the additional funding will allow us to accelerate our efforts in technologically enabling our merchant partners to keep up with this change,” said de Silva.

He said the overarching motivation of the VNLIFE group is “to use technology to make life better for Vietnamese”.

VNLIFE’s core fintech subsidiary, VNPAY, offers software for banks that want to provide mobile payment apps and other digital services. It also offers QR code payment systems to retailers, which can process payments from those bank apps. VNLIFE says it works with over 40 banks and that its payments network has 22 million users and more than 150,000 partner merchants. Its two other verticals are online travel and retail.

The latest investment came from investors including US-based General Atlantic and Dragoneer Investment Group. PayPal Ventures, the venture capital arm of US payments company PayPal, and Singapore’s EDBI also participated in the funding round, along with existing investors GIC and SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund.

The investment values the company at “well over $1 billion”, de Silva told the financial press, but it is “years away” from an initial public offering. In July 2019, it raised $300 million from Softbank and GIC.

He told WiT that online travel was a natural progression of what the company is trying to build in Vietnam. “It was an essential use case for consumers, we want to touch the consumer at multiple points during the day, during the week, during the year. First we had digital banking, then top up, bill payment, QR pay.

“Point to point travel is a complementary business and one of the largest pain points in travel in Vietnam is payments. Credit card penetration is very low in Vietnam and travel is a higher value item and the current mode of payment is cash on delivery. Since we have a cashless payments network, it can support travel and fix that pain point.”

De Silva, who joined VNLIFE about five years ago, said, “We are likely one of the largest online travel agents in Vietnam”.

It is a pure domestic play, with an omnichannel distribution for inventory and a centralized pricing and aggregation engine that pushes out content across different channels depending on different demographics, said de Silva.

Its first travel distribution channel was through its banking vertical in which Vietnamese could book travel through their banking app and pay by direct debit. Then it partnered with non-bank partners such as My Wallet and iCheck, so that they could sell travel to their customers. Its third distribution channel is through its direct consumer apps such as Dinogo, which caters for younger first time travellers and mytour.vn, aimed at the higher end segment. The fourth channel is its agent network – Tripi Partners – with 10,000 digitally-enabled agents nationwide.

“We don’t rely on just one channel, our aggregated inventory is distributed through different channels, different product mixes. We can do this because we are focused on domestic. The biggest cost in travel is user acquisition and we work with strategic partners to monetise their customer base.

“We pride ourselves in supply side integration and merchant management. Travel is not a difficult business. You win the travel business with your relationships and serving of airlines and hotels partners.”

Customer service is also a prime focus and even though mytour.vn is an online business, it has opened what he called “experiential customer service stores” in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. “They are not designed for selling, but for customer experience. Today if customers want service, such as changing flights, they are pushed into a call centre. During this whole pandemic, customer support is where we have excelled.”

It plans to open up to 15 service centres in the country.

Source: https://www.webintravel.com/vietnams-fintech-unicorn-to-use-new-funds-to-beef-up-online-travel-business/

The round is led by General Atlantic and Dragoneer Investment Group, with participation from PayPal Ventures, EDBI and existing investors GIC and SoftBank Vision Fund 1.

VNLife says it will use the funding to “further capitalize on the vast market opportunities in an increasingly digital Vietnam…”

VNLife’s travel subsidiary, VNTravel, is a domestic online travel agency offering booking of air, hotels and tours and activities to more than five million customers through platforms such as Mytour.vn, Dinogo, Tripi and more than 30 mobile banking applications.

In July, VNTravel signed an agreement with Yanolja Cloud, a hospitality software provider, to provide its technology to hotels in Vietnam to enable digital check in and check out, contactless payments and other services.

“The global experience and perspective they can bring to further support our growth ambitions is very exciting. Given a rapidly growing digital consumer base in the country, the additional funding will allow us to accelerate our efforts in technologically enabling our merchant partners to keep up with this change,” says Niraan De Silva, managing director, VNLife.

Source: https://www.phocuswire.com/vietnamese-tech-conglomerate-ota-operator-raises-250-million

As an affiliate of VNLife, VNTravel ranks on top in the local travel market with more than five million customers. The company provides more than 50,000 tour and activity products and offers deals for more than 1.5 million hotels over multiple platforms such as Mytour.vn, Dinogo, Tripi and more than 30 Mobile Banking applications from Vietnam local banks.

The two companies will work closely together to lead the digital transformation of the Vietnamese travel industry by combining Yanolja Cloud’s innovative technology with that of VNTravel’s local network and sales expertise. First, Yanolja Cloud’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions will be deployed to hotels in the Vietnamese market to create an environment for real-time data connectivity, improving their operational efficiency and customer convenience. Meanwhile, VNTravel will carry out local marketing campaigns with its in-depth understanding of the local market and support the interconnectivity with VNPay, one of Vietnam’s three major e-payment solutions.

The future of digital transformation in Vietnam tourism market

Binh Giang TRAN, CEO of VNTravel, said, “I am very pleased to partner with Yanolja, the number one global cloud-based solution company and digital transformation leader in the hospitality industry. A combination of VNTravel’s local experience with Yanolja’s technological expertise will definitely bring the best solution to the Vietnam market.”

Andrew KIM, Head of Global Hotel Solutions of Yanolja Cloud, said, “We are delighted to partner with VNTravel. The partnership will accelerate the deployment of our cloud-based solution to local hotels in Vietnam, which will not only help them improve their operational efficiency and enhance the guest experience, but will also allow us to spearhead the full digitization of the Vietnamese hospitality industry. As a travel tech company, Yanolja Cloud will continue to lead the digital transformation of the global leisure industry with innovative technologies.”

Currently, Yanolja Cloud provides services for more than 30,000 clients in approximately 170 countries worldwide, in more than 60 languages. With its easy-to-access SaaS platform that improves operational efficiency, Yanolja Cloud is growing its customer base in emerging markets, such as Southeast Asia, Africa, India, and Sri Lanka, beyond advanced countries like the US and Europe. This year, in particular, Yanolja Cloud will further solidify its position as the global number one cloud-based hospitality solution company with the launching of its Y FLUX, an internally developed automated solution.

About Yanolja Cloud

Created to strengthen Yanolja’s leadership in the global hospitality market with Software-as-a-Service technology, Yanolja Cloud is the global top cloud-based hospitality solution provider offering B2B operation solutions. for approximately 30,000 clients in 170 countries in more than 60 different languages. With its Y FLUX, a fully automated hotel management solution, Yanolja Cloud plans to drive the digital transformation of hotels, leisure and residential spaces while establishing a cloud solution ecosystem that satisfies the needs of partners, booking channels and customers. Yanolja Cloud is expanding its client base by leveraging its powerful SaaS model, enabling efficient installation and operation, and is developing optimized local solutions through partnership with global leaders.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/yanolja-cloud-signs-a-strategic-partnership-agreement-with-top-vietnamese-travel-company-vntravel-1030630160