Sydney startup Cozitrip has come up with an innovative new way to help Australian hotels tap into the booming billion dollar Chinese tourism market.
Based at the Haymarket HQ startup incubator in Sydney and backed by VC Follow the Seed and supported by Alibaba Cloud, Cozitrip has raised $2 million to date for its new online platform that allows Chinese travel agents to book in bulk.
“The technology means that we can better connect Chinese travel agents to the Australian accommodation market to help local hoteliers promote their brand to a bigger audience in China.”
The company has the backing of investors like Peking University alumni, IronFish CEO Joseph Chou, and international VC fund Follow[the]Seed and was able to launch in China in 2015 with support from Alibaba Cloud.
There’s a big cultural difference in the way Chinese travellers book their trips and what they look for in their accommodation, says Ping Wu, Cozitrip’s co-founder and CEO.
“The majority of Chinese visitors prefer personal interaction when arranging travel and choose to book their trip using personalised service travel agents who (unfortunately) often don’t understand the Australian market or language.
“These agents end up calling one hotel after another to figure out if it’s the right one and check availability, which makes it really hard for them to service their clients and market Australia as a destination. Our platform makes this a whole lot easier.”
Duco van Breemen, General Manager at Haymarket HQ said Cozitrip is just one of many Australian startups with global ambitions and an interest in Asia.
Cozitrip is a fantastic example of some of the best startup smarts we have here in Australia.
Haymarket HQ is Australia’s first not-for-profit startup hub supporting entrepreneurs to grow into Asia and we’re delighted to be along for the journey as this great company scales up.
“We see a growing trend in the ANZ region of start-ups looking to engage with Asian markets. By partnering with Alibaba Cloud, one of the largest cloud providers in the Asia Pacific region and globally, we are helping start-ups across the region explore new opportunities,” Mr van Breemen said.
Cozitrip was founded in 2015 by two tech-driven experts: Ping Wu (a Peking University graduate with 20+ years of IT experience working for Global 500 companies like FedEx and HP) and Rinat Sadykov (an Auckland University Honours graduate and former developer at Atlassian).