HotelQuickly is a mobile based application which enables users to find and book last minute hotels online at very discounted rates. The Company was founded in December 15th, 2012 and incorporated but was officially launched for public use on March 20th, 2013.
App
The application is available for both iPhone users with iOS operating systems as well as Android device users. The application features discounted last-minute rooms (usually more than 1000 rooms) in 3 to 5 star hotels in 15 countries in the Asia pacific region. The company’s headquarter is based in Hong Kong and this is the location for the company’s regional holding. However, its head office of operations is located in Bangkok, Thailand.
Curated
All featured hotels on HotelQuickly are usually top rated and are often reviewed by a dedicated team of experienced specialists so as to ensure they meet quality assurance criteria as well as customer demands. The company application is mobile based and hence requires all members to first sign up before they can view any details or specifics about the range of rooms and offers available.
Background
While initially the site only allowed users to book on the same day as their stay, the company has widened its window for booking in order to allow users to book rooms a day before they check in. The new design of the application also allows for multi-bookings and has added filters to allow the user to sort out hotels based on prices and enable third party reviews of each hotel offered.
All of this works through partnerships that Hotelquickly has with hotels throughout the region. By allowing the hotels a chance to sell their unoccupied inventories, hotels benefit, even at those discounted rates. Hotelquickly build users based on those promo deals and keeps customers coming back with an ever expanding network of quality hotels. The company often adds more features to the mobile app to ensure it meets the current technological trends and allow for the best possible user experience.
Founders
The company currently has around 100 employees. Tomas Laboutka is the company’s founder and chief executive officer. He attained his CEMS Master’s in International Management degree at Rotterdam school of management and at the University of Prague. He is a specialist consultant who has worked with FL Ventures Ltd and various companies over the past 6 years across central and Eastern Europe.
Christian Mischler is HolelQUickly’s co-founder, chief operating officer and chief marketing officer. His numerous leadership skills have enabled him to work with many companies in the past including Credit Suisse’s Corporate Development, Rocket Internet and FoodPanda.
Other key executives include Michal Juhas who is the company’s chief technology officer, Mario Peng who is the chief financial officer, and Raphael Cohen who is the chief security officer.
History
HotelQuickly Company was incorporated on December 15th, 2012. However, the company was officially launched to the public on March 20, 2013. The launching first took place across six countries; Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
This has now expanded to more than 15 countries in the Asia-pacific region. When it was first launched, the mobile based application could only be accessed by iPhone users (iOS) or android devices. Over the course of 2013 however, the app was made available for BlackBerry 10 devices as well. The company expanded to 5 more markets including three Asian countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Macau) and the main pacific markets (Australia and New Zealand). HotelQuickly is therefore the first company to make last-minute mobile-only hotel booking available on the two continents.
Investment
On September 25, 2013, HotelQuicly acquired a venture type of funding from Singapore businessman and former chairman of DBS bank known as Koh Boon Hwee. This helped raise a series A round of up to HKD$9 million (about $1.16 million USD). According to sources, the funds were used for product development and expansion through the Asia-Pacific region, where it currently operates in 15 countries.
HotelQuickly also secured $6 million in two rounds of funding made by GREE international. This global mobile social company became the lead investor in the series A round of USD 4.5m Series. The company also raised A-1 round in 2014, bringing the total funds raised to USD 5.65m. The second round was also led by GREE through a series A Venture Round of up to $4.5 million. This was co-invested by the Chairman and CEO of Minor International, William E. Heinecke.
How it works
HotelQuickly offers all its members’ exclusive discounts. It promotes spontaneous travel by using advanced technology to make members travel more efficiently. The company’s business model earns profits to its partners and provides its clients with quality hotel standards at quite low rates.
It also enriches the Asia-pacific region by providing a new way of travel to natives or visitors passing through this destinations for the weekend, or those staying for a while. One is able to experience the convenience of booking hotels at any time until 4 AM for same-night check-in, making payments easily through PayPal, credit card, debit card or LINE Pay and getting access to the best rates online.
One can also earn credit for sharing their voucher code with friends and more discounts based on traveler loyalty program. Personalized filters in the app also enable people to view hotels based on how well they match individual needs and preferences. The more you book, the more the app studies and learns your preferences, This helps users to save their most common travel preferences as filters to use in the future, and store payment details much faster booking.
Availability
HotelQuickly is available in 15 countries in the Asia-pacific region covering up to 190 different destinations. This include; Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, Australia Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Cambodia Taiwan, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Singapore Vietnam, with more countries to be covered soon. According to the company, they are partnered with over 12,000 hotels across APAC.
In a move that appeals specifically to Asian users, the app supports English and different native languages in the Asia-pacific region to ensure every client, even those without advanced knowledge of English can use it easily. Some of the languages supported by the app include; Cantonese, English, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese, Bahasa Melayu, Simplified Chinese, and Taiwanese.
Partners
GREE is one of the key partners to HotelQuickly. The co-founder and chief operating officer, Christian Mischler, acknowledges that HotelQuickly can benefit from GREE in improving their services through personnel exchange, the sharing of technical expertise, and other and developing products for a fast-moving market, since the Japanese mobile app is quite advanced in terms of product development and business intelligence. HotelQuickly has also partnered with ICE Portal as a distributor for online visual
content that covers over 100 destinations across the Asia-Pacific region. ICE has had a successful reputation in the United States and HotelQuickly is incorporating their services in the Asian market enabling them to get easy access to high quality properties including pictures which they feature on the mobile app.
Competition
Last-minute hotel booking is quite a new service in the Asian market. However. Like any other market, there is competition. For example, CheckInTonight, a Cambodia-based startup also focuses on the same model and service as HotelQuickly. Hotel Tonight, which was founded in December 2010, also operates in the same way as HotelQuickly.
Despite being a frontrunner in the Asia-Pacific market, HotelQuickly has to cope with the competition from all these last-minute-booking companies and they have done well so far. HotelQuickly is covering more cities and regions and offers hotel rates which are on average 28 percent cheaper than all other prices.
It is however making effort to boost its inventory of hotels in order to keep its customers, recommending other new users and to cope with the stiff competition
Summary
HotelQuickly is a mobile based, last-minute hotel booking application with the biggest inventory and best rates available across Asia with the most exclusive hotels in the region on offer. Users enjoy the fastest and most convenient way to book the most attractive last minute hotel rooms.
HotelQuickly provide numerous benefits to hotels they are a tool to optimize hotel occupancy in real-time. This enables hotels to fill unsold rooms that would otherwise remain empty and incur cost. For customers, it provides the benefits of convenience, through filters that only show the best hotels in close proximity.
Despite the various advantages that HotelQuickly enjoys as a front runner in the Asian markets, it also suffers from various challenges. One such challenge is localization due to stiff competition in the market. Other challenges are region specific. For instance, trust in e-commerce has been a challenge in both Indonesia and Vietnam. Despite the growth of and penetration of credit cards, it is still quite low since people are unwilling to give up their card information because of fear.
This is a consequence of fraud and other cybercrimes which have been witnessed before. This makes it quite challenging to do business online. In Vietnam, HotelQuickly has partnered with local banks to do promotion for credit card holders. The company has also made an effort to resolve this challenges through initiatives with other businesses which deal in non-cash payment methods such as transportation apps; Uber, GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi to help promote people’s confidence in credit card or non-cash transactions.