NusaTrip expands to Vietnam

April 17, 2023 | 07:25
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Indonesian online travel platform NusaTrip announced its acquisition of VLeisure, a Ho Chi Minh City-based online business-to-business hotel platform, on April 12.
NusaTrip expands to Vietnam

The acquisition of VLeisure helps NusaTrip to expand its base of operations and geographic reach outside of Indonesia. Going forward, NusaTrip will continue to acquire both online and traditional travel agencies and build itself into a major travel platform for the booming Southeast Asian tourist market.

Founded in 2011, VLeisure is the first online wholesale platform for travel products such as hotel rooms and airline tickets for travel agencies. It promotes the distribution of these products to domestic and international tour operators by accessing a database of more than 650,000 hotels registered on the system.

In addition to the distribution channel, VLeisure also provides a tech platform for hotel, distribution channel, and revenue management services for small- and medium-sized hotels in Vietnam.

Found in 2013, NusaTrip is the first online travel agent (OTA) in Indonesia to receive International Air Transport Association accreditation, serving both local and global customers by optimising advanced technology and providing 24/7 customer-centric support services.

Travel demands have been boosted by the return of a growing middle class in Southeast Asia, while strong internet penetration has allowed many to easily book flights, hotels, and other components of the trips through OTAs. According to Phocuswright’s Southeast Asia Travel Market Report for 2021-2025, gross bookings in Southeast Asia will reach 94 per cent of the record 2019 level.

It has more than 1.2 million registered users, and more than 500 airlines and 200,000 hotels around the world are onboard. NusaTrip is part of the SoPa ecosystem, a digital loyalty platform in Southeast Asia based in the US that has vertical companies operating across multiple industries.

Leveraging on SoPa's financial capabilities and NusaTrip's technology, VLeisure will focus on reinforcing hotel management software ecosystems in Vietnam, before expanding to the rest of Southeast Asia. In addition, NusaTrip has now gained a foothold to expand its business-to-consumer and business-to-business offerings in Vietnam.

Phan Le, founder and CEO of VLeisure, and now also CEO of NusaTrip Vietnam said, “Being able to access the infrastructure of the parent companies in terms of capital investment, technology, marketing, and customer support, VLeisure will better serve our customers in Vietnam while driving the growth of the hotel software ecosystems and our hotel management services. VLeisure's trip planning and booking capabilities, together with our insights of hotel technology in Vietnam, will complement Nusatrip's existing travel offerings, leading to a more personalised user experience.”

Dennis Nguyen, founder of SoPa and president and CEO of NusaTrip said, “VLeisure blends perfectly with our user and merchant growth strategy. We will incorporate NusaTrip's online ticketing technology for corporate and retail customers into VLeisure's sales channel solutions and hotel management software”.

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