Fxtrip.com, a site providing outbound independent travel packages, has received over USD ten million in Series B financing from its leading investor Shanghai Zhongwei Venture Capital and its Series A investor Shunwei Capital, reports tech media 36Kr.
Wang Zhenhua, founder and CEO of Fxtrip.com, says this round of fundraising will be used to add more travel destination options, expand distribution channels and speed up the pace of marketing. Prior to founding Fxtrip.com, Wang was the vice president of Ganji.com, previously the second biggest classifieds site in China.
Fxtrip.com, a travel platform that targets young women, started operating in September 2013 in Beijing. “In most cases, females are the ones who make travel decisions. And beaches and islands are among their preferred destinations,” said Wang.
Like most Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), Fxtrip.com handles air tickets, hotels, visa applications, pickup and itinerary plans for their users. But they claim to provide traveling choices of higher quality. “No cheap airlines and no express hotels,” says its official website. Fxtrip.com also has featured services including tailor-made itineraries and 24-hour customer service staff on standby for communicating through Wechat and phone calls.
While unlike most OTAs, with their bewildering arrays of choices, Fxtrip.com provides tour packages focusing only on several overseas destinations, including Cambodia, Seoul, Bangkok, Singapore, Bali, Japan, Switzerland and Paris. According to Wang, they focus on only a few selected destinations in order to save their users the trouble of choosing, guarantee a high quality of service, give users more choices in one destination and also cut costs.
But from this year on, they plan to expand at the pace of one more destination per month.
Wang says, their revenue in 2015 reached RMB one hundred million, which is ten-fold the amount of the previous year. And the monthly growth rate of its revenue is 30%. He also says that the Cambodia route is the most popular with travelers from China.
Although Fxtrip.com has successfully landed its Series B financing, it still faces great pressure from many rivals, including OTA giants, Tuniu Travel backed by Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, Tongcheng Travel backed by real estate giant Wanda and also smaller travel platforms including Qyer.com and Mafengwo.cn.
(Top photo from Baidu Images)
