South Korea’s leading accommodation booking website operator Yanolja Co. recently made two big acquisitions announcement. The company is set to acquire Dailyhotel, its biggest rival in the country and Indian lodgings management platform eZee Technosys. Yanolja had become the latest to achieve the unicorn status in the startup system in South Korea with an investment of $180 million raised in June 2019.
The latest deals will boost Yanolja boost reservation services for luxury accommodation through Dailyhotel and expand its base to global clients with the India-based eZee Technosys.
Deals to boost business prospects for Yanolja
Daily Co., the company that owns the Dailyhotel app offers reservation services for five-star hotels and fine-dining restaurants in Korea and abroad. eZee Technosys has over 21,000-plus global clients that they manage for room bookings and loyalty programs online through automation technology.
The Dailyhotel app was launched in 2013 and does the online and mobile reservation for about 400,000 hotels in 210 countries including most major hotels in Korea such as Shilla hotel, as well as 4,700 pensions and 1,000 fine-dining restaurants. Dailyhotel’s total transactions exceeded 170 billion won in 2018 and the cumulative downloads for Daily app surpassed 10 million as of August 2018.
With Daily Co., acquisition Yanolja will get to expand its business as a luxury hospitality provider and with eZee Yanolja will get its fully automated hotel management platform. Yanolja has not disclosed the value of both the deals.
In July 2018, Yanolja had acquired ZEN Rooms, a leading budget hotel chain based in Southeast Asia. Same year it bought W. Design Group’s hotel brand W. Design & Hotels based in Busan and South Gyeongsang Province. Yanolja has also bought Woori Pension, Korea’s largest holiday guest house and hospitality reservation site operator, providing reservations for more than 10,000 pensions and pool villas. Adding Dailyhotel and eZee Technosys to its business portfolio will enable Yanolja to expand its business rapidly and grow into a platform providing services for travel and leisure clients.
Achieving 70% growth & investing in the future
On March 20, the startup announced that it has seen a revenue growth of more than 70 per cent for the fifth year of operations. The company is optimistic about its future despite current economic meltdown. The startup logged a total revenue of $260 million, which is 78.8 percent up from the previous year.
Yanolja is also launching an education program for front desk managers for its smart hotels. The online-curriculums will be offered from April 6 through April 30. The course is aimed to train next-generation front desk managers for better understanding of operations and management of smart hotel systems equipped with a variety of next-generation technologies. The education program is available for anyone interested in smart hotels at academy.yanolja.com.
