The handshake of two "giants" in digital tourism

Booking.com and Klook, a service and experience platform, have just announced a long-term strategic partnership. Accordingly, when accessing Booking.com, in the "Places to Visit" feature, tourists can easily book most of the services during their trip, from renting cars, arranging tours to booking many different types of accommodation.

According to Booking.com, Klook partners with the platform in 175 cities, over 30 markets, mainly in Asia and Oceania. This partnership gives users access to more activities and attractions, upgrading the booking experience to be more seamless and convenient than ever at over 1,100 locations worldwide.

After launching in Vietnam, through cooperation with Klook, some of the experience tours that many tourists are interested in on the Booking.com platform are "Mekong Delta Tour, Vinh Trang Pagoda, Boat Ride & Local Specialty Lunch", "Half-Day Tour for Small Groups to Cu Chi Tunnels" or "Ha Long Bay Tour - 6 hours on a cruise, kayaking, swimming and hiking"...

Explaining the partnership, Urvi Thakkar, Senior Director of Communications at Booking.com, said: "With the desire to travel resurgent, making travel planning and booking easier and more convenient is critical to enhancing the customer experience, and at the same time supporting the recovery of the travel industry. The ecosystem we are developing to connect the necessary steps when traveling enables this, and that has led to the recently announced partnership between Booking.com and Klook."

So in theory, with the Booking.com platform, a Vietnamese tourist can organize his own tour with full services and experiences, without the participation of a travel agency. "With budget and experience being the top criteria for today's tourists, having all the features to serve the trip on one platform greatly supports tourists" - Ms. Urvi Thakkar added.

The collaboration between two leading online travel platforms (OTAs) in the region continues to affirm the position of technology, the trend of independent travel and the urgency of digital transformation in the tourism industry. This poses many challenges to traditional travel activities, requiring them to have different products and correctly identify the "customer portrait".

However, local tour operators and the travel community at the destination can also leverage online platforms like Booking.com to reach a larger market. Wilfred Fan, Chief Financial Officer of Klook, believes that "this partnership will allow our platform partners to reach a larger customer base worldwide, while helping to get travel back on track in the Asia-Pacific region." Booking.com also affirmed that it will support museums and tour operators by connecting millions of customers to attractions.

According to VOV