In what can be seen as an unexpected turn of events, two of the largest hospitality groups in China shook hands and merged recently. In doing so, both Plateno and Jin Jang managed to create the largest hotel group in China, not to mention that they also hit the top 5 in the entire world as well.
The partnership was made official during a ceremony in Shanghai which took place on September 18. Basically, Jin Jang acquired a 81% stake in Plateno, something that brought in front a new dominance in the hospitality world. The company is already established in the economy, midscale and upscale segments which are dominated by many of its brands. This is not the first acquisition for them, as they have also acquired the Louvre Hotels group as well as other important brands.
On the other hand, Plateno also brought in quite a lot of brands towards its group as well, around 17 of them which were focused on both midscale as well as upscale sections. They focused on plenty of brands such as ZMAX, 7 days inn, 7 days premium, but maybe the most interesting out of them all was Xana Hotelle, the first hotel brand that was created specifically for women. This alone brought in front an astounding, high quality merging of brands, all of which are now controlled by Jin Jang, most of them to say the least.
This particular partnership is basically comprised out of no less than 6,000 hotels, around 640,000 guest rooms and all of these are spanned over no less than 55 countries. This alone shows the massive exposure that the new group has and how good the entire result really is.
On top of that, it’s important to note that Plateno also has one of the largest membership platforms in the industry, offering services to around 4 million followers that use WeChat, not to mention that the rate started to grow exponentially. Combined, the new union created here covers no less than 100 million persons, which is a huge number to say the least.
The interesting thing about this partnership is that all partners can operate their brands as they did before, but there is a plan to have a central booking that will focus on customer relationship management, all while optimizing the revenue management and channels. As we have seen’s Accor’s move to open their channels for direct bookings, it shows that the Big Brands try to get grip on their high commissions costs towards online travel agents.
The main goal of this amazing cooperation is to offer a powerful, very competitive and unique brand that would be able to create the best hospitality services in the industry. If that will be achieved or not, it remains to be seen, but the two companies are definitely managing to take over the hospitality industry in China and perhaps the rest of the world, as rumours tell they are looking into Starwood, the become worlds largest player. We look forward to see what the other players have to say about this!
