IF you’re an avid traveller and a last minute one at that — you’d have probably heard of HotelQuickly — the specially designed app that was introduced to mobile users in March 2013 and claims to have made its way across Southeast Asia quickly.
Founded by Tomas Laboutka, HotelQuickly caters to some 4,500 hotels in over 190 destinations and guarantees that users will be treated to an average discount of 28%, compared to other booking sites.
The one-stop app, available on Android, iPhone and Blackberry 10 devices, was launched in Malaysia late last year after having made its presence felt in Australia, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
It has now made its way to another of Asia’s booming tourism and tech-savvy spots — South Korea.
Laboutka, who is also CEO of HotelQuickly, said: “It was an easy decision to launch there. We saw a huge potential in South Korea because of the high smartphone penetration rate and proximity to other HotelQuickly markets. We’re capitalising on the growing trend of staycations enjoyed by South Koreans.”
He added how HotelQuickly is confident of meeting the needs of domestic and international travellers while furthering its goal to cover the entire Southeast Asia region and is carefully choosing quality hotel partners to be aligned with its brand.
Since its launch, HotelQuickly has secured US$5.65 million (RM20.23 million) from global investors, including funding from Tokyo-based social mobile company GREE.
Despite seeing huge success as the leading hotel-booking app thus far, Laboutka and his team still feel there’s room for improvement. Currently, the team is working with IOS and Android to redesign the app to make the last-minute hotel booking not only more intuitive, but visually exciting as well. Using feedback from its loyal users, the HotelQuickly team are also making sure to implement changes for better service.
This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 16, 2015.