This is the best team: from Ctrip to Home Inns, Hanting I

Chapter 11 Transformation Acquisition (2)
The reason why Ji Qi led the army to enter this industry is not only that other businesses are not profitable, but also because of what Long Yuanzhao, deputy general manager of China Travel Bank Construction, said when he participated in the "Tourism Industry and Internet Economy Seminar" last time. Bottom line: The Internet still has an impact on traditional travel agencies. The first to be impacted is the room and ticket booking business.These two services brought a lot of income to our travel agency in the past, but now with the acceleration of information circulation, we have no choice but to do both.

In November 1999, Ctrip began to develop and use an online reservation system to make hotel reservations, and took the hotel reservation business as the main development direction for the next two years.

However, Ji Qi's calculation was wrong again.Although hotel reservation is a very promising sunrise industry, it is a pity that the Ctrip team has sharpened its head and cannot squeeze in.

03 Acquiring others is a shortcut

Why can't you squeeze in?The reason is very simple.

An Internet company that has only been established for half a year and has never engaged in hotel reservations expands the hotel reservation business, and the results can be imagined.

They often encounter situations like this:
In a luxury hotel, a young man finally knocked on the door of the hotel manager.

"Hello, manager! This is my business card. I am a salesman of Ctrip." The young man handed the business card to the other party very enthusiastically.

"What are you doing?" The hotel manager casually threw the business card into a small corner of the desk, and gave the young man a squinting look.

"Our website hopes to provide room reservation service for your company's hotel." The young man said with a smile on his face.

"What? Online hotel reservations? Don't you see we have a website too?"

"Yes, I know this too. However, we are a professional website, and we promote it nationwide." The young man said awkwardly.

"Oh, I see, but I'm busy now, so I'll contact you when I have time." The hotel manager sent him off without listening to the young man.

In fact, it is normal to be invited out by others.Just imagine, for a small and unknown company that has just started to make hotel reservations, who would be willing to cooperate with it.It is already very lucky not to be swept out with a broom.

However, Ctrip's salesmen went to knock on the door of the hotel again and again, and were ruthlessly rejected again and again, and it was not for nothing.At least these hotels have remembered the name Ctrip.At the same time, with the repeated visits of salesmen, some hotels gradually began to try to cooperate with Ctrip.Of course, Ctrip did not treat these partners badly. One passenger was sent to this hotel today, and another 10 passengers were sent a month later.

In this way, it took more than three months for Ctrip to establish partnerships with more than 3 hotels across the country.

However, establishing a partnership does not mean making money.With the development of the room reservation business, Ji Qi suddenly discovered that hotel reservation is not as simple as imagined.As long as a platform is provided, Ctrip can earn commissions from it.The problem now is that the hotel has done it, but there are not many passengers who book rooms online.

what to do?Ji Qi decided to hold a general meeting of shareholders.

Ji Qi said: "Brothers, the situation is very bad now, and the hotel reservations can no longer be made, what should I do?"

Fan Min said, "Let's sell tour groups and plane tickets!"

Liang Jianzhang said: "Let's poach people!"

"There is no turning back for a long time. But, can poaching people solve the problem?" Ji Qi said.

"Then what do you think?" Liang Jianzhang asked.

"In my opinion, it can only be a full-scale acquisition. The operation and development of this industry are related to the company's structure and customer relations. It is not simply poaching people to solve the problem." Ji Qi continued, "At present, making room reservations The best companies to make reservations are Modern Express, Shangzhixing, Paterson, and Golden Century, and I want to talk to them.”

So, can Ji Qi handle it?
04 These companies are good

Without buying others, can you start the room reservation business with your own ability?
The answer is yes.However, Ji Qi knew very well that efficiency is life, and time is money.For the current situation of Ctrip, it is the best choice to acquire the best room reservation agency in the market.It is actually not easy for people to have the scale they are today.

The first company, Hyundai Express, was the first to spot this market and rushed into it without hesitation.

In 1996, an employee of the foreign trade department of Lantian Industrial discovered during a business trip that there were many kinds of hotel prices, ranging from large customer prices to individual guest prices, and the prices varied greatly.After the employee came back, he told their director Wang Shengli about the situation, and suggested that the company enter the room reservation market.

When Wang Shengli heard it, hey!Makes sense.He also discovered this situation when he was on a business trip, and Wang Shengli immediately called the chairman of Blue Sky Industry.

The chairman said: "The suggestion is very good! Can you conduct another survey to see how well the market recognizes it?"

In order to verify whether this judgment is in line with the actual situation, Wang Shengli listened to the chairman's suggestion and conducted a market survey first.

At the beginning of 1997, the Spring Canton Fair was held again.Every year at this time, Blue Sky Group goes to the Canton Fair.Wang Shengli thought to himself that all the exhibitors who came to the Canton Fair were exhibitors from all over the country, and they should all be the target group of hotel reservations.Therefore, Wang Shengli and his partners sent 6000 questionnaires to conduct a survey at the Canton Fair. The content of the survey was "Originally a room was 800 yuan, if 600 yuan was introduced to you, would you be willing?" How do you feel this way?" As a result, 4000 questionnaires were collected, and the response was very good.

It seems that the market does exist, and the rest is preparation work.

On December 1997, 12, with Lantian Industrial as the major shareholder, Wang Shengli and others participated in the shares, and invested 18 million yuan to establish Modern Express Business Travel Service Co., Ltd., Wang Shengli served as the general manager.

However, when the reservation business was first launched, Hyundai Express only had 36 hotels.At that time, many hotels did not recognize the method of booking.com. They always asked: Can you bring me more guests with such a low price?
Yes, the rooms that could have been sold for more than 1000 yuan are now paid to Modern Express for more than 600 yuan. No wonder the hotel has doubts.

Facing the hotel's suspicion, Wang Shengli was very confident.He believes that Modern Express is a network company. After connecting these hotels, it will become a national hotel reservation network, which can definitely bring more guests to the hotel. This advantage is incomparable to a single hotel.

In order to dispel the concerns of the hotel, in addition to persuading, Hyundai Express also took out nearly one million cash as a deposit for the contracted hotel.

Sure enough, the market is surprisingly large.Although the hotel cooperated with Hyundai Express with suspicion, the number of customers Hyundai Express brought them soon made the hotel shout "Long live".The performance of Modern Express is really staggering.In the first few months, the business volume of Modern Express grew at a rate of 200% per month. It didn't take long for Modern Express to become the largest hotel distributor in the country.Provide more than 100 star hotel reservation services in more than 700 cities across the country.At the busiest time, 2 people book rooms in hotels in major cities across the country through this company a month.

Modern Express Company is not only a pioneer of domestic hotel reservations, it opened up the industry of hotel reservations, and also established the Modern Express model: 800 toll-free number and call center.

When Hyundai Express was first established, travel agencies were still doing manual work, and most of them used computers for bookkeeping. Hyundai Express installed a reservation system from the very beginning: Call Center (call answering center), and they also spent 6 yuan. Yuan sold a phone number: 800-810-6666.

At that time, there were two options.One way is to set up a switchboard according to the traditional way, and then transfer it.Another way is the computer system, buy a Motorola minicomputer of 60 to [-] yuan.

Do you want to use a computer system?Some people in the company think that Modern Express may only have a dozen bills at most at the beginning, and manual bookkeeping is enough. It costs 60 million yuan to buy a Motorola minicomputer. For a company with an investment of only 200 million yuan, It is really unnecessary.However, Wang Shengli is keenly aware that this market will expand rapidly.

Wang Shengli's feeling came true.Hyundai Express only made an advertisement in the Civil Aviation News of China at first:
"China Hotel Reservation Network" opened.As a result, on the first day of its opening, the phone number of Modern Express was "overwhelmed" by the consulting users.In the first few months of opening, the number of calls increased at a rate of 200%, and it stabilized at about 10% per month after half a year.

Wang Shengli succeeded, and this time he made a fortune faster than getting into trouble, because he was the first to discover the blank market of hotel reservations.

However, in the hotel reservation industry, he is the first, not the only one.There is another person worthy of our big book 82. This is the special book of the best team. This person is Wu Hai. He discovered this market through another way.

Wu Hai graduated from the Central University of Finance and Economics with a major in economic information management. After receiving a period of training abroad, he worked in a state-owned company for two years after returning to China. Later, he joined Hainan Phoenix Co., Ltd. as the general manager of the northern region.

Hainan Phoenix is ​​an enterprise co-founded by Soros Investment Group and Hainan Airlines. Its main business is to sell air ticket reservation system.The ticket reservation system is a sales platform through which the ticket booker can issue tickets to the passengers on the plane.

The booking system developed by Hainan Phoenix was originally intended to be sold to various airlines.However, when this platform was promoted, it encountered problems that could not be solved.

The thing is like this, at that time, all the data of air tickets (flight, class, discount, etc.) were in the information center of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.The Civil Aviation Administration also has its own air ticket reservation system, so it is impossible for the Civil Aviation Administration to hand over the data to its competitor Hainan Phoenix.

In desperation, Wu Hai had no choice but to find various airlines.However, various airlines were worried that the cooperation with Hainan Phoenix would affect the relationship with the Information Center of the Civil Aviation Administration, and they kept looking for reasons to perfunctory Wu Hai.

The CAAC couldn't figure it out, and the airlines refused to cooperate. Wu Hai was really depressed.

However, Wu Hai's thoughts quickly changed again.He thought: It doesn't make much sense to put the terminals of Hainan Phoenix into the existing air ticket agency points, because each point of sale already has the air ticket reservation system of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.What will happen if we change the distribution channel and put the terminal in the hotel?At present, each hotel does not have an air ticket reservation system, and the other party will get extra income because of this, and they are definitely willing to cooperate.

So, Wu Hai started to do market research, visiting hotels one by one to observe.

After half a month of continuous observation, Wu Hai was surprised by the market demand.In many hotels, he found a large number of direct door-to-door travelers, which means that there is a huge space for hotel bookings, which is much larger than air ticket bookings.

It's really "unintentionally inserting willows and willows into shade".This research was an unexpected bonus.After Wu Hai returned to the company, he immediately made a suggestion to the leader and made a hotel reservation.

Seeing that it was really difficult to book an air ticket, the leader agreed without thinking too long.Regrettably, when this proposal was established, there was a sudden personnel change within Hainan Phoenix, and fierce factional struggles emerged.

Wu Hai usually hates intrigue the most, and he doesn't want to involve himself in this struggle.Therefore, Wu Hai resigned and chose to leave.

After leaving Hainan Phoenix, Wu Haila found some investors and established Weishangzhixing Information Technology Co., Ltd.Although Shangzhixing was established a few months later than Hyundai Express and experienced some ups and downs at the beginning, Shangzhixing soon became one of the largest reservation centers in China.

If both Wang Shengli and Wu Hai discovered the room reservation market through personal research, then Li Zizheng and Liu Zhigang got to know this industry through their partners.

Let me talk about Li Zizheng first.

In 1997, Li Zizheng was elected as the chairman of Jinbo Business Hotel in Henan Province.After taking office, Li Zizheng encountered a very difficult problem: guest rooms are different from catering.For catering, if you can't sell it today, you can continue to sell it tomorrow, and the price will not be much different.But as for the guest room, if it cannot be sold today, it will be an eternal loss.At the same time, the hotel is very regional. If you want people from all over the world to know about it, you will need to spend a lot of advertising money.

This question has been bothering Li Zizheng until one afternoon, Li Zizheng received a request letter from an online hotel member.

This solicitation letter is sent from a company in the UK.The content is, if you are willing to give a certain commission to the online hotel, you can also give customers a certain discount.Then, all the customers on the Internet hotel are yours.

it is good!This method is fantastic.Li Zizheng remembered that he had come into contact with similar network models when he was on a business trip, such as Universal Card, Minhui Card and so on.If you enter this industry now, there will definitely be drama.

After acknowledging this business model and seeing this market opportunity, in May 1998, Li Zizheng went north to Beijing and established Golden Century Internet Room Reservation Service Co., Ltd.The market is positioned to serve business travel customers, adopts a membership system, and launches the Golden Century Hotel Reservation VIP Card with a unified national price of 5 yuan.

At the beginning, the market responded quite strongly, and Li Zizheng's room reservation business was carried out vigorously.But later, Li Zizheng still ran into trouble.Because some hotels do not abide by the contract, they discount privately in order to compete for customers, and the prices of VIP card members are higher than those of ordinary customers.

In the face of members' complaints and departures, Li Zizheng took strong measures.Say "goodbye" firmly to those hotels that have repeatedly defaulted on their contracts.At the same time, it solemnly promises to consumers that if the above situation occurs, Golden Century will pay the customer double the price difference of the hotel.

Due to the timely and effective methods, Golden Century has also gained a firm foothold in the hotel reservation industry in Beijing.

Then talk about Liu Zhigang.

In 1997, Liu Zhigang participated in the establishment of Beijing Modern Express Business Travel Service Co., Ltd. and served as the deputy general manager.

Two years later, Liu Zhigang left Modern Express and founded a discount room reservation service company again, named Beijing Besteqin Travel Consulting Co., Ltd., and launched an e-commerce website: Lohoo.com at the same time.

Why start a new company?

Liu Zhigang found that in 1998, only 300% of the reservation channels for hotels with an average room rate between 500 and 12.8 yuan came from reservation websites, and 77% still came from traditional hotel reservations, travel agencies, and hotel representative agencies. channel.

From this point of view, it shows that the market demand for online room reservation is very large, and it is no problem to set up a few more companies.So Liu Zhigang decided to break in alone.

The four reservation companies mentioned above are the targets that Ji Qi wants to acquire.Which companies does Ji Qi want to acquire?Was the acquisition successful?Please see the breakdown next time.

start acquisition

01 Negotiations are really difficult

One midnight in January 2000, it was snowing heavily outside the window.At this time, Ji Qi didn't feel sleepy, not because he drank a cup of espresso a few hours ago, but because he saw the news that America Online had acquired Time Warner while watching the news during the day.

For Ctrip, this news seemed to be a sign and hint, which made Ji Qi, who came to Beijing because of something, very excited.

When Ji Qi came to Beijing this time, in addition to the newly established Beijing branch and the need to attend a press conference, he also had a more important task, which was to determine the acquisition target.

Who to buy?In Ctrip's office in Beijing's Chang'an Building, Ji Qi was busy making contact in the morning, and met with the heads of several companies, including Modern Express, Shangzhixing, Golden Century, Guoxin Business League, and Patel Touche in the afternoon.

In the IT circle, these names are not very famous, but in the hotel reservation industry, they are well-known, with no less than four to five thousand room nights booked every month (room night, industry term, that is, one room stays for one night) .Compared with them, Ctrip can only be regarded as insignificant.

The first person Ji Qi wants to meet is Wang Shengli, the general manager of Modern Express.

Before meeting Ji Qi, Wang Shengli had heard of the name Ctrip, but had no special impression.Wang Shengli once logged on to Ctrip.com, and looked at the reservation center very carefully, but he didn't see anything special about it.

Hearing the news that Ji Qi wanted to meet, Wang Shengli thought to himself: These young people have encircled a sum of money and want to find something to do. They are not familiar with hotel reservations, so they should ask me for advice.Just chat!See if there is any opportunity for cooperation.

After the meeting, Ji Qi first told Wang Shengli how he felt in the United States, and how he was shocked when he first met the Internet.Then he introduced the situation of Ctrip making hotel reservations.

All of this was expected by Wang Shengli, and this little-known small company really just entered the industry.However, Ji Qi's next question surprised Wang Shengli.

"Does your company sell?" Ji Qi stared at Wang Shengli and asked.

"I've never considered this issue." Wang Shengli was puzzled.

"Then you might as well think about how much you plan to sell if you sell it?" Ji Qi continued, "We are either a joint venture, a strategic alliance partner, or a competitor."

"Okay then! I'll leave first, and I'll tell you when our company wants to sell." Wang Shengli left Chang'an Building full of suspicion, thinking to himself: There must be something wrong with this young man's mind.

(End of this chapter)