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Wanda eyes Shanghai takeover

12/05/2014| 12:02:54 PM| 中文

Wanda Tourism has become a dark horse capital investor in the tour operation sector with its recent aggressive acquisition of 10 travel companies.

Wanda Tourism has become a dark horse capital investor in the tour operation sector with its recent aggressive acquisition of 10 travel companies.

 “Our next travel company acquisition target will be in Shanghai,” said Yueming Mo, vice president of Wanda Culture Group. “Our main customer base is in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Shanghai is now the missing piece in our distribution network so adding coverage there is a top priority.” He also revealed that only 60% of the group’s RMB2 billion funding allocated towards developing its travel agency network has been spent, so Wanda will continue to invest in travel companies and search for suitable acquisitions.

Acquisition by capital investors is a clear way out for traditional tour agencies facing increasing pressured by OTAs. “Our first criteria for acquisition targets is that they must be in a key source market or on of our invested heavily Wanda Cultural City sites. Secondly, they must be among the top three in operational revenue locally. Thirdly, they must have well-developed operation and management and have a unique niche,” said Mr. Mo.

In overseas development, he revealed the next step is to effective integrate Wanda’s resources in its global network and make to gain control over resources for its travel companies. Wanda currently has invested in hotels in the UK, Spain, Australia and the USA and will likely acquire or set up travel agencies in these locations.

Mr Mo shared his social strategy to deal with uncertainties in an unfamiliar market. “First we must leverage each company’s forte and specialties, support and encourage their consolidation, then integrate them in accordance with Wanda’s corporate culture. Next year we will launch an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for integrated financial management of all of our travel companies. We aim to rank among the top five travel companies in China by 2016 and in the top three by 2018,” he said.(Translation by David)

TAGS: Wanda Tourism | investment | Shanghai
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