NusaTrip, a Jakarta-based online travel agency (OTA) and the travel vertical of Society Pass Inc (SoPa), has on Thursday announced the acquisition of VLeisure, a Vietnam-based online business to business (B2B) hotel platform.
NusaTrip said in a statement that the VLeisure acquisition extends NusaTrip’s base of operations and geographical reach outside of Indonesia for the first time.
It said going forward, NusaTrip will continue to acquire online and offline travel agencies in Southeast Asia (SEA) as it builds a regional travel platform servicing the booming SEA travel market.
According to the statement, the VLeisure acquisition comes at an opportune time for NusaTrip with the dramatic rebound in the SEA travel market from the depths of the Covid pandemic.
The marked increase in demand is driven by strong government initiatives to boost tourism, the rise of SEA’s burgeoning middle class and strong internet penetration, which enables more Southeast Asians to more easily book flights and hotels through OTAs.
Cited Web In Travel, NusaTrip said gross bookings in 2025 will reach 94 percent of the record 2019 levels.
It also cited the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said the tourism sector expects to welcome 110 million tourist arrivals in 2023, valued at $27 billion, representing 5.7 percent of Vietnam’s projected 2023 gross domestic product (GDP) of $469 billion.
Leveraging on SoPa’s capital and NusaTrip’s technology, VLeisure will market its hotel management SaaS products to small-to-medium size hotels initially in Vietnam and then to the rest of SEA.
In addition, NusaTrip now acquires an operational foothold to significantly expand its B2C and B2B businesses in Vietnam.
“With SoPa’s rapid growth in 2021 and 2022 and NusaTrip’s position as a leading IATA-licensed travel platform in Indonesia, VLeisure now is able to access our parent companies’ infrastructure of capital, technology, marketing, and customer support, allowing VLeisure to better serve our Vietnam-based customers and accelerate growth in our hotel business,” said Phan Le, VLeisure Founder and Managing Director.
He also said that VLeisure’s trip planning, booking capabilities, hotel technology expertise complements Nusatrip’s existing travel services to deliver a more personalized user experience.
Founded in 2011 as a Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam-based online marketplace for hotels, airlines, and travel agencies, VLeisure empowers Vietnamese, regional and international OTAs by distributing their travel products.
The firm services small-to-medium size hotels in Vietnam and empowering online and offline travel agencies to manage and distribute travel products and services.
Travel agents access to VLeisure’s extensive inventory of over 650,000 registered hotels.
It is also a hotel technology platform servicing small-to-medium size hotels with customer booking and revenue collection software solutions.
According to Dennis Nguyen, Society Pass Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and NusaTrip Chairman, the acquisition combine NusaTrip’s robust flight B2B technology and business to consumer (B2C) operational breadth with VLeisure extensive hotel management software solutions.
“With Phan’s significant experience and knowledge of the Vietnamese travel sector, I appoint him as the Managing Director of Nusatrip Vietnam,
“As Head of our Hotel Business, his expertise in hotel technology allows him to create unique travel goods and services that meet the demands of Vietnamese travellers,” he said.
Founded in 2013, NusaTrip is an International Air Transport Association (IATA)-licensed online travel agency that serves both local and global customers and partners by optimizing cutting-edge technology and providing 24/7 customer-centric support team-as-a-service.
With its first mover advantage, NusaTrip has onboarded +1.2 million registered users, +500 airlines and +200,000 hotels around the world as well as connected with over 80 million unique visitors.
NusaTrip is now an integral member of SoPa, the Vietnam-based next generation, data-driven, loyalty, fintech and e-commerce ecosystem.
Founded in 2018, SoPa is an acquisition-focused holding company operating six interconnected verticals (loyalty, digital media, travel, telecoms, lifestyle, and food and beverage), which connects millions of registered consumers and hundreds of thousands of registered merchants/brands across multiple product and service categories throughout SEA.