JD enters the hotel and tourism industry

Chinese e-commerce giant JD announced on Wednesday that it will enter the hotel and tourism industry through providing supply chain services for hotels to help them lower operational costs and promote the healthy and sustained development of hotel sector.

The company said in an open letter to hotel operators that the merchants participating in JD's hotel membership program will enjoy up to three years of zero commission fees. It hopes to help the hotel industry reduce operational costs, enabling it to pour more resources into improving service quality and enhancing guest experiences.

JD said it boasts over 800 million users with high consumption capacities nationwide and has inked deep partnerships with more than 30,000 large enterprises and over 8 million small and medium-sized enterprises.

Its user base and partners highly overlap with the main customer group of hotels rated four-star and above, which will bring about an abundant and diverse source of high-potential consumer traffic, it said, adding the high-frequency consumption from large number of users has given rise to more demands in fields such as tourism and travel.

The move came after JD's entry into the highly competitive food delivery sector primarily dominated by Meituan and Alibaba's Ele.me. The number of its full-time food delivery riders has surpassed 120,000.