Shiji to Take Controlling Stake of Baoku Online, Heading for Business Travel SAAS Market

(30th March 2018)  Beijing Shiji Information Technology Co., Ltd. (“Shiji” or the “Company”) has signed a share transfer and share purchase agreement to acquire the majority stake of BAOKU Online Inc. (BAOKU Online), the leading business travel and expense management company in China. The two parties will work closely on a number of business topics through integration of products and resources.

“The market space for travel management in China is huge. According to our long-term observations, there are tremendous demands and pain points in the travel management service market in China. In the past 10 years, many local entrepreneurs and international travel management service providers have attempted to enter this market, which cultivated and promoted the development of this market. Driven by the development of mobile applications and guest journey solutions in the hospitality industry, we see momentum amongst simple and easy to use technology supporting the market space, initially focused on China.

The strategic investment in BAOKU Online will extend Shiji’s hotel business to the enterprise travel management market, complementing our existing channel partner portfolio and increasing revenue opportunities to our hotel clients by streamlining sales, reservations, and settlement automation. In tandem, BAOKU Online will increase their hotel suppliers and enterprise client base by taking advantage of access to the Shiji platform eco system.” Said Kevin King, Chief Operating Officer, Shiji.

China’s business travel market is increasing rapidly. According to Global Business Travel Association’s report, the market size of business travel in China is close to RMB2 trillion and China has overtaken US as world’s largest business travel market. However, domestic enterprises have been facing different problems with travel management as over-complicated and decentralized workflow, low efficiency and low transparency of the business travel fee.

BAOKU Online, a cloud-based travel management platform, has 2 major business lines: 1) the development and supporting services of the ticket direct sales system for enterprise clients -- for major airlines in China including Air China, Shenzhen Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Shandong Airlines, and Sichuan Airlines, etc.; 2) the all-in-one SaaS intelligent travel management platform providing technical platform services for the upstream and downstream of the travel industry. On one end, it provides enterprise users with SaaS services such as travel cost control, flow control, supply chain management, trading platform, settlement and reimbursement, etc.; the other end integrates multiple airline direct sales systems, hotel group direct sales systems, corporate car rental suppliers and train ticket booking service providers, and nearly 100 travel service companies and OTAs.

As a leading hotel information system and industry total solution provider in China, Shiji is dedicated to continuously improving both value and guest experience, supporting business solutions where consumers “Eat, Sleep, Shop, Travel & Play.” With more than 12,000 hotel clients, the Company’s system solution offering includes Property and Enterprise Restaurant Management, Back Office Finance and Inventory, Central Reservations, Customer Relationship, Loyalty Management and Mobile Guest Journey, further supported by Shiji horizonal platform solutions such as Shiji Payment, Shiji Distribution, Consulting, Hardware Supply and Service. Shiji has become the senior information systems provider for Hotels, Food & Beverage, Retail, Leisure & Entertainment industries.

“By investing in BAOKU Online, Shiji is committing attention on the fastest growing business travel management services arena. The partnership will work to accelerate online travel management platform construction and continue to expand the types and quantity of upstream suppliers. Taking advantage of the already established power in the hospitality industry, Shiji hopes to upgrade the entire business travel and expense management service level through strategic cooperation and investment in BAOKU Online.” emphasized Kevin King.

Wang Xuesong, CEO of BAOKU Online, commented: “We are delighted to have Shiji’s stake-holder investment in BAOKU Online. It is also expected that we will jointly promote technological upgrading and business model innovations in the travel management industry.”

Shiji’s Platform Strategy is the foundation of long-term development, representing our direction into the future, being fully global, cloud and data centric.

The acquisition is another important move for Shiji’s Platform Strategy, promoting the Company’s intention to accelerate the introduction of data driven and large consumption platform methodologies, whilst completing the transformation from software service provider to platform operator.

About Shiji

Founded in 1998, Shiji’s aim is to become a “big data” application service platform operator. Shiji has become the leading manufacturer of Chinese hotel information systems after three successful transformations. At the same time, Shiji is gradually expanding from hotel to catering and retail industries, becoming the major software supplier to both industries. Now, Shiji is responsible for approximately 60% to 70% of the market share in the high end sector of hotel and retail industries, and possesses a leading position in the catering industry. The estimated annual revenue of Shiji clients can be as high as RMB 5 trillion. Shiji has completed three successful transformations since its establishment. It is now experiencing the 4th transformation dedicating to be a “big data” driven consumer application service platform operator. Shiji has introduced consulting, IT solutions and data platform services. Meanwhile, Shiji is developing worldwide leading products and technologies aiming for the international market and speeding up its globalization progress. Currently Shiji has more than 30 subsidiaries located in major Chinese cities and overseas markets (Singapore and Munich) with 3,000+ employees.

About BAOKU Online

BAOKU Online Inc. is the leading business travel and expense management company in China. Founded in 2007, Baoku revolutionizes the way business travel has been traditionally (and inadequately) managed by launching a cloud-based SaaS solution platform that weaves together enterprises' internal process and suppliers' (and intermediaries') reservation process, by offering its enterprise clients a one-stop, end to end SaaS solution on demand, covering internal process management, supply chain management, booking and reservation, payment and clearing services, data services, and a shared service center for business travelers.

Using Baoku, a business traveler can initiate a request for travel, receives his/her manager's approval, makes reservations, claims expenses, receives approval, etc., all through one system. Finance and Support departments can monitor suppliers' performance, collect complete data, improves payment efficiency and performs analysis that helps to improve quality of future travel related decisions.

Media contact:

何雯 Fiona He

市场部总经理 | Marketing General Manager

M +86 139 1156 5515 | E fiona.he@shijigroup.com

北京中长石基信息技术股份有限公司 | Beijing Shiji Information Technology Co., Ltd.  

北京东城区朝阳门内东水井胡同北京INN 2号楼 B座 15层

15F, Beijing Inn, No. 5 East Shui Jing Hu Tong, Chao Yang Men Nei, Dongcheng District, Beijing 100010, China

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