Malaysia-based budget hotel chain, Tune Hotels, makes a breakthrough in tapping the Chinese outbound travel market with the recent inking of a marketing collaboration agreement withPlateno, one of China’s leading hospitality group.

For a start, 14 Tune Hotels’ properties in Asia, Australia, England and Scotland are featured on Plateno’s booking engine.

Guangzhou-based Plateno operates over 2,000 hotels under five different brands across more than 300 cities throughout China. It also operates the country’s largest hospitality loyalty programme with over 80 million members who travel for business and leisure, domestically and overseas.

The Chinese outbound market is big as 97 million China residents travelled out of the country last year, a 16.8% increase from a year before.

As of August this year, the year-on-year increase for the corresponding period is a staggering 17%.

Shaking on a deal, Tune Hotels’ Mark Lankester (right) with Plateno’s Alex Zheng.

Tune Hotels group CEO Mark Lankester said: “As more mainland Chinese citizens begin to look towards outbound travel to see and experience different parts of the world, the question is who do they rely on? This is a natural synergy whereby Plateno will be able to help their members in their outbound journeys by recommending hotels overseas that are in the same category as, for example, their 7Days Inn brand.”

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