Aus startup partners with Alibaba Cloud to access China-Australia travel market

Sydney-based startup Cozitrip, backed by VC Follow[the]Seed and supported by Alibaba Cloud, has come up with an innovative new way to help Australian hotels tap into the booming billion-dollar Chinese tourism market.

The company, based in Sydney's Haymarket HQ startup incubator, has raised AUD$2 million to date for its new online platform that allows Chinese travel agents to book in bulk and at the same time.

Cozitrip was founded in 2015 by two tech-driven experts: Ping Wu (a Peking University graduate with 20+ years of IT experience working for Global 500 companies like FedEx and HP) and Rinat Sadykov (an Auckland University Honours graduate and former developer at Atlassian).

"The technology means that we can better connect Chinese travel agents to the Australian accommodation market to help local hoteliers promote their brand to a bigger audience in China," said Ping Wu, Cozitrip's co-founder and CEO.

"There's a big cultural difference in the way Chinese travellers book their trips and what they look for in their accommodation.

"The majority of Chinese visitors prefer personal interaction when arranging travel and choose to book their trip using personalised service travel agents who (unfortunately) often doesn't understand the Australian market or language.

"These agents end up calling one hotel after another to figure out if it's the right one and check availability, which makes it really hard for them to service their clients and market Australia as a destination. Our platform makes this a whole lot easier.

Duco van Breemen, Haymarket HQ general manager, says Cozitrip is just one of many Australian startups with global ambitions and an interest in Asia.

"Cozitrip is a fantastic example of some of the best startup smarts we have here in Australia.

The company has the backing of investors like Peking University alumni, IronFish CEO Joseph Chou, and international VC fund Follow[the]Seed and was founded in 2015 and went live in China with support from Alibaba Cloud.