HRS eases global business travel

Germany-based hotel comparison service provider to localize efforts in Chinese market

China's business travel market requires more localized services and innovation among hotel information suppliers, senior executives of HRS said at a recent news conference.

"China is a very special market. It is a crucial base for HRS as a global enterprise," said Jiang Jun, vice-president of HRS in the Asia-Pacific region.

The German travel agency portal provides hotel reservation services, among others. It entered China in 2002 and has strived to develop its Chinese business via market analysis and innovative services over the past 16 years.

Since 2000, China's business travel market has maintained an average annual growth rate of more than 15 percent, with the sector hitting $318 billion in scale in 2017. It is set to increase by 8 percent in 2018, according to the Global Business Travel Association Business Travel Index Outlook 2017-21.

"More Chinese enterprises have significantly sped up their expansion in overseas markets, and we must refresh ourselves to localize our services in China," Jiang said.

Since 2007, the company has shifted its role from catering to foreign companies' business travel in China to serving all kinds of enterprises in the country.

In China, the growing demand for business travel data transparency, cost saving and employee satisfaction are all factors guiding HRS' pursuit of greater localization, Jiang said.

Shi Nanfei, managing director of HRS in China, said more than 95 percent of hotels in China are independent, and they cluster around second and third-tier cities.

"It's challenging for us to put our limited energy into integrating hotel services and meeting customers' needs in such a complicated market," he said.

To date, the company has launched a string of solutions based on big data and artificial intelligence, which offer solutions ranging from intelligent sourcing, search and booking to central billing payment and risk management.

In 2012, HRS initiated an intelligent sourcing solution through big data analysis. The company can now collect information on hotels globally and make automatic comparisons, identify the most suitable hotels for travelers, and so save them time and money, Shi said.

"We possess huge amounts of data after more than 40 years of development," he said. "Using machines to analyze data increases efficiency and helps travel managers to better collate hotels' details and offers."

In 2016, HRS established its Asia-Pacific research and development center in Shanghai to accelerate the development and upgrading of new products and to boost new technologies.

This year, the company released a product that allows localized central billing payment process.

With the support of AI technology and big data, the system offers hotels a digital payment service to allow business travel without payment in advance and provides a collective invoice by collecting booking, payment and invoice data.

"This payment solution can increase transparency, reduce workloads and enhance the satisfaction of business travelers through its streamlined process," Shi said.

"The core of our business is focused on building a bridge between hotels and companies through technology and localized solutions, in the hope of aiding domestic enterprises to go abroad," he added.

According to the company's executives, HRS is set to announce an outsourcing solution for companies in May to further simplify business travel and better serve the Chinese market.

liangkaiyan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/31/2018 page10)