ZENRooms, a budget hotel chain invested by Yanolja, a hotel and leisure platform company, grew by 500% in just 10 months, a Yanolja spokesman said on May 28. ZENRooms is the Southeast Asia’s No.1 budget hotel chain company, running more than 1,000 franchise hotels.
Last July, with the aim to maximize synergies for its global business expansion, Yanolja made the investment decision and has shared with ZENRooms its know-how and experience as the No.1 franchise hotel chain and the biggest hotel and leisure activity reservation platform in South Korea.
Against the backdrop of ZENRooms’ demonstrated performance, Yanolja, through investments in both domestic and overseas start-ups, will continue to digitize the accommodation and leisure industry and actively contribute to the development of the start-up ecosystem, the spokesman said.
In fact, ZENRooms has grown very rapidly after Yanolja’s investment. For example, ZENRooms' monthly sales this January and February grew by more than 500% compared with the same period last year, and the number of monthly average users has also doubled.
Yanolja has assessed that the potential business synergies between the two companies in the future will be substantial, as unlike other hotel chains, ZENRooms provides integrated services covering from online reservations and sales management to offline hotel maintenance and housekeeping operations based on its self-developed platforms.
Yanolja had highly valued ZENRooms for its latent but huge growth potential as Southeast Asia’s No.1 budget hotel chain, and how it continued to strengthen and differentiate itself from the competition such as OYO Rooms.
Before investing in ZENRooms, Yanolja had already began taking active measures to improve and lead the hotel and leisure market by acquiring or investing in early-stage start-ups.
In July 2016, Yanolja acquired ‘Hotelnow’, the very first hotel reservation platform in South Korea, and after the acquisition, Hotelnow recorded a 400% growth in its sales. In March of last year, through the acquisition of ‘Leisure Q’, the No.1 online leisure activity booking platform in South Korea, Yanolja attained the largest selection of leisure and activity products in South Korea.
Earlier this year, to strengthen its competitiveness in the field of hotel management automation, Yanolja acquired ‘Garam’ and ‘Seereal’, the first and second largest hotel property management system companies in South Korea.
“While maximizing synergies with its partners through strategic collaboration and advice-giving, Yanolja is now also making meaningful investments to strengthen the start-up ecosystem with the underlying goal of improving and further digitizing the hotel and leisure activity industry. Based on its business capabilities and experiences to date, Yanolja will contribute to the vitalization and growth of the relevant market with continued interests and investments into both domestic and global start-ups,” the spokesman said.
