Chinese Social Media Travel Website Gains USD15 Million Investment

With the backdrop of worries over a tourism drop in China because of the avian flu, Mafengwo.cn, a Chinese tourism social media website, announced that it has completed its B financing round of USD15 million and the investors included Qiming Venture Partners and Capital Today.

Capital Today is also an investor in the A round financing of Mafengwo.cn. Mafengwo.cn will reportedly use the new investments in business model innovation and mobile Internet deployment.

Mafengwo.cn said that the tourism tips mobile application published by the company in 2011 has been installed by over 20 million users. At the same time, by cooperating with overseas and Chinese tourism service providers like Booking.com, Agoda, Ctrip, and Elong, the company started providing global hotel and tourism booking services to its users from 2012.

At present, Mafengwo.cn is operating a “decision making” platform, which covers global hotel, ticket, tourism route, visa, and insurance services. Over 50,000 users reportedly complete tourism bookings via Mafengwo.cn each day.

Mafengwo.cn predicted that by 2014, over 50 million users will use the website platform and mobile services of the company. With the development of its tourism products and the mature of big data analysis, Mafengwo.cn will be able to provide customized tourism services to users.

The H7N9 avian influenza virus has already claimed over 100 lives in China and the effect on the tourism industry has already been felt. Many Taiwanese and Hong Kong travel operators have cancelled tours to coastal Chinese cities, and hotels in larger cities around China and expressing hope that this slump will not be as devastating as the SARS epidemic in 2003.