Manila, Philippines, 22 June 2018 – RedDoorz, one of the leading online budget hotels booking platforms in Southeast Asia, expands into the Philippines with an investment of more than US$5 million, projecting to grow its footprint to 100 properties across the archipelagic country over the next 12 months.
RedDoorz helps hoteliers and guest house owners to showcase their property over a responsive platform, allowing them to reach out to a larger audience, increase their distribution, earn a brand name, and streamline operations.
The online platform seeks to apply the same business approach that allowed them to succeed in Indonesia and Singapore, where it’s headquartered. RedDoorz city-to-city approach has resulted in growing to over 500 properties, processing more than 1 million room nights and consistently delivering occupancies of more than 80 per cent across 16 Indonesian cities, Singapore and now, the Philippines.
“Our expansion into the Philippines came as a natural progression. Filipinos have a penchant for staycations and myriad of choices when it comes to local tourist destinations. They share these similarities with our first market in Indonesia,” said RedDoorz Founder and CEO, Amit Saberwal.
“While we continue to grow our footprints in Indonesia, we also closely monitored and surveyed the Filipino market. Following our fresh funding earlier this year, we realized that the Philippines held a strong demand for hotel rooms not only for tourists but also for business travelers. We felt that it was timely for us to make the conclusive move to start expanding here – especially seeing how boisterous the budget hospitality sector has been in recent years.”
According to a joint study titled “e-conomy SEA: Unlocking the $200B Digital Opportunity” by Google and Temasek Holdings, it found that the Philippines ranked second after Indonesia as the world’s fastest growing internet market with the potential to grow by 11 per cent in CAGR to 93 million internet users by 2020. This also meant a vibrant outlook for the online travel market in the Philippines, specifically for online hotels and airlines, which is expected to grow approximately five times from US$1.1 billion in 2015 to US$4.6 billion by 2025.
Getting property owners onboard its disruptive model
With a strong local team on-the-ground, RedDoorz runs a full operations unit in Manila ranging from customer service, operations and product sales to branding, finance and marketing.
“The biggest challenge is the mindset for property owners to accept our model, especially since this technology disruption has only taken place over the last three to four years in this region. We come in to educate and train these owners and their staff on why it is essential for their businesses to go on online platforms. Becoming a part of the RedDoorz network will allow them access, similar to how large hotel chains operate, which would not have been made available to them. Technology is part of our DNA – the biggest beneficiaries of this are the mid-sized and budget properties,” Amit Saberwal further added.
As part of their inhouse training program RedPro, the brand runs ongoing programs for the staff of their partner properties and ensure smooth operations. Training is conducted across areas like: technology, housekeeping and maintenance, sales and marketing, and more.
RedDoorz Premium
After learning about the local market, RedDoorz announced the introduction of a new category of properties. Adding to its existing two categories, RedDoorz and RedDoorz Plus, the new RedDoorz Premium are properties that are designed for the budget business traveler – not only strategically located close to business districts but have more amenities than the other two existing categories on the RedDoorz platform.
“This introduction of Premium properties came with our observation of how the Filipino concept of a ‘condotel’ had seen a remarkable growth in the Philippines over the past decade. We felt that by adding this new category, we could create a distinction of rooms in the market while also keeping to our ethos of providing the same standardization and predictability that comes with all RedDoorz properties – all at affordable prices. The aim of this new category is to target the business traveler who looks for certain amenities like good Wifi connection, location closer to business districts and other amenities. We see this as a strong category as we expand into other Southeast Asian cities where there is an influx of business travelers,” said Rishabh Singhi, Chief Operating Officer, RedDoorz.
RedDoorz recently raised its Pre-Series B round of US$11 million as an additional investment from Asia Investment Fund of Susquehanna International Group, International Finance Corporation (private investment arm of World Bank Group), InnoVen Capital (venture lending firm owned by Temasek Holdings and United Overseas Bank), and Jungle Ventures – all of which had invested in past funding rounds. This fundraise also saw new investors DeepSky Capital, FengHe Group, Hendale Capital as well as other investors.
About RedDoorz
Established in 2015, RedDoorz helps hoteliers and guest house owners to showcase their property over a responsive platform, allowing them to reach out to larger audiences, increase their distribution, earn a brand name and streamline operations. The brand spans over 500 properties – all available via the RedDoorz platform; processing more than 1 million room nights and consistently delivering occupancies of more than 80 per cent across all markets. The brand operates across 16 cities in Indonesia, Singapore and recently launched their services in The Philippines.
Thorough Quality Check Points by RedDoorz ensure that the guests are served with a consistent experience, each time during their stay at any of the partner property. The stay experience drives a continuous demand of business and helps a non-branded guest house or a hotel to emerge as a brand to infuse trust and to strengthen a strong base of loyal customers. For more information, please visit www.reddoorz.com.