In mid-September, Vntrip.vn, an online hotel room booking app, announced the admission of Atadi.vn, a provider of cheap air tickets, into its system.

At the same time, Vntrip.vn introduced the project VNTrip360 - Digitizing Vietnam tourism with 360 degree photo technology and announced strategic cooperation between the firm and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) to implement the project.

The project, utilizing AI and 360 degree photo technology, aims to build a smart tourism urban management model which connects Southeast Asia with the rest of world tourism.

Vntrip.vn is now a strategic partner of booking.com. It is the only unit in Vietnam which has the right to access Booking.com’s network of 8,000 domestic hotels and more than 1 million hotels in 200 countries.

To date, Vntrip.vn has built up a network of 11,000 hotels across the country, while running promotion campaigns applied to member hotels.

In July 2016, Vntrip.vn received a $3 million investment from Alibaba angel investors. Just one year later, it received $10 million from foreign investment funds. Most recently, it successfully called for capital from Swiss IHAG Holding.

Meanwhile, Atadi helps travelers compare the airfares of different airlines.

The signing of the strategic cooperation agreement between Luxstay, a homestay and apartment leasing firms, and Rakuten Lifull Stay from Japan is another notable event that occurred recently.

While cooperation will help Rakuten expand its operation in Southeast Asia, and allow Luxstay to be present in more Asian markets. Homestays, villas and serviced apartments will be shown on the booking systems of both the partners, providing more choices to their clients.

Vietnamese travelers to Japan, for example, can stay at locals’ homes via Luxstay, while Japanese can easily choose villas in Vietnam via Rakuten.

In the future, Luxstay and Rakuten plan to launch Rakuten Stay, an accommodation service brand.

According to Steve Nguyen, CEO of Luxstay, there are many large firms providing room booking services such as Booking.com, Traveloka.com and Vntrip.vn. In accommodation sharing, there are only two well known names – Luxstay and Airbnb. 

As Airbnb has not provided services officially here, Luxstay is now the only service provider. It hopes that it will become the leading service provider in the field in Vietnam before reaching to other Southeast Asian countries.

As for Rakuten, this is the first time the company has developed a real estate brand outside Japan.

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