S. Korea's Yanolja acquires top local hospitality PMS solutions provider

South Korea’s leading accommodation booking platform Yanolja has acquired the country’s top hospitality information technology (IT) solutions provider in a bid to become No.1 property management system (PMS) provider in both local and global hospitality market.

According to multiple sources from the travel industry on Sunday, Yanolja recently completed acquisition of Sanha Information Technology Inc., Korea’s leading developer of IT solutions in leisure facility sector such as hotels, resorts, golf clubs, and restaurants. Financial terms for the deal were not disclosed.

Sanha Information Technology – founded in 1994 – is Korea’s No. 1 operator, especially, in the PMS market that provides services to about 1,000 local and global hotel and resort chains including Best Western Hotels & Resorts and Wyndham Hotel Group in Korea.

PMS, or a hotel operating system, is a system for integrated management and operations of hospitality accommodations such as lighting and electronic devices. The system allows hotel and resort operators to save on operation hours through remote management and real-time monitoring on the rooms. It also maximizes efficiency and revenue by effectively allocating manpower.

Yanolja’s acquisition of Sanha Information Technology is expected to create great synergy between the latter’s exclusive and extensive knowhow and the former’s own technology, which, in result, would help to meet its goal it to become global PMS market leader in two years.

In 2019, Yanolja acquired eZee, an Indian hotel tech firm and PMS and channel management system developer, to become the No. 2 player in the global PMS market after Oracle and No. 1 in cloud-based PMS market.

An unnamed official from the travel industry said that PMS clients of Yanolja are currently small and mid-tier hotels, whereas those of Sanha Information Technology are luxury hotel and resort operators in Korea including Shilla, Hyatt, and Banyan Tree.

The company hopes the latest acquisition can help it enhance its position in the global hospitality solutions market that is estimated to be valued at an annual 1,000 trillion won ($906.7 billion). Yanolja aims to lead the market by expediting digitization with cloud, telecommunications, and Internet of Things technologies.

In November, Yanolja invested in Nowbusking, developer of Nowwaiting, a waiting list solution provider, to enhance overall competitiveness in hospitality solutions business.

Yanolja is expected to expand non-face-to-face application solution products to a diverse range of leisure facilities such as hotels and resorts by integrating products and services of the two companies in the era of Covid-19.

Yanolja also plans to expand application of its self-developed comprehensive hotel automation solution Y Flux to customers of Sanha Information Technology such as hotels, resorts, golf clubs, and restaurants. Since 2019, the two companies have jointly developed a non-face-to-face hotel platform based on IoT technology.

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