Never one to stay out of the travel news cycle for long, AccorHotels, who recently announced the purchase of table reservation system ResDiary, has now released news of another smart strategic move – this time signing a MoU with Chinese heavyweight Ctrip.

The MoU will give the Chinese heavyweight’s 300 million registered users access to Accor’s huge catalogue of ‘personalised experiences’ from across the company’s global portfolio.

This list includes names like Raffles, Sofitel Legend, Fairmont, SO/, Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery by Sofitel, Swissôtel, onefinestay and 25hours Hotel, as well as Novotel, Mercure, Mama Shelter and Adagio and the economy brands JO&JOE, ibis, ibis Styles, ibis budget and the regional Grand Mercure,The Sebel and hotelF1.

“We are proud to be a privileged hospitality partner of Ctrip”

“We are pleased to take the partnership with Ctrip to the next level and proud to be a privileged hospitality partner of Ctrip,” said Sebastien Bazin, chairman and CEO of AccorHotels, “Our role is to provide hospitality expertise to all segments of the market.

“We want to offer Chinese guests our know-how and service skills in order to become their preferred hospitality group. AccorHotels will also launch its own program to train and certify at least 250 hotels by 2020 on Chinese Optimum Standards.”

“These properties will be trained to answer major Chinese guests’ expectations, aligned with our strong ambition on this market. As China’s preeminent travel agency, Ctrip, with its over 300 million registered users is definitely a strategic partner of AccorHotels in the region,” Bazin concluded.

In addition to being  a benefit to the vast swathes of Ctrip’s users, the agreement marks the beginning of a relationship of ‘deeper cooperation’ between the two companies, which will concentrate on developing boosting the prominence of Accor’s brands in the region, building a flagship store for AccorHotels, joint development of the pair’s loyalty programmes and cooperation on IT.

“We are very excited to be deepening our partnership with AccorHotels. With the ever-growing number of outbound Chinese travellers, we are always looking for ways to provide better services for our customers and with the deepened AccorHotels relationship, we are able to offer magnified experiences and property choices,” said Jane Sun, CEO of Ctrip. “With the diverse range of hotels offered by AccorHotels, Ctrip customers will have access to a vast majority of its hotels globally.”