Shares for Corporate Travel Management soared this morning after it announced it entered into a new strategic joint venture with a Chinese firm on Friday afternoon.
CTM also upgraded its FY15 profit forecast after announcing the joint venture with World 99, one of China’s fastest growing e-commerce companies.
The agreement will see CTM subsidiary Westminster CTM and the outbound travel company to establish 99 Westminster e-commerce Company Ltd which will have distribution rights for CTM’s products outside of China.
CTM founder and managing director Jamie Pherous said the company had developed an “intimate understanding of the unique requirements of Chinese travellers” after last year’s acquisition of Asian travel business, Westminster CTM.
According to CTM, Westminster CTM sold 50,000 tickets through the joint venture last month alone.
“The joint venture will enable a travel solution that more suitably caters to the cultural, language and service expectations of the Chinese consumer within China and abroad,” Pherous said.
“It allows World 99 to rapidly open up key overseas markets outside of China and create a global market place for Chinese travellers by leveraging CTM’s one contact point across our offices in the Asia Pacific, Europe and the USA.”
CTM said the joint venture requires “minimal additional capital”, and would leverage the company’s technology, relationships and processing platforms.
World99 is focused on the FIT market – Chinese free independent travellers – globally, and since founding in April 2014 is now servicing more than 80,000 customers and transacting RMB250m (AUD$50.4m) a month.
“We have been clear that, above all, acquisitions and partnerships must be the right fit for our business,” Pherous said.
