Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has spent $522 million (US$457m) to buy a 15% stake in a Beijing-based hotel-technology firm, Beijing Shiji Information Technology Co., making it one of the biggest business to business hotel solution acquisitions this year.
The acquisition spree for the Group comes shortly after a record-breaking $28.5 billion (US$25b) initial public offering (IPO) in the US.
Beijing Shiji provides property management systems and other technologies to more than 400 hotels and is the preferred vendor in China for big chains such as Grand Hyatt, Sheraton, Hilton, Shangri-la, Marriott, Peninsula and Accor, Skift reports.
Rumours that Alibaba was looking to acquire Expedia has been quelled, for now and despite taking a minority share in Beijing Shiji, Skift reports it may be premature to speculate what will happen to Alibaba’s other travel businesses, Taobao Travel and sites Qyer.com and 117go.com.
