FRANKFURT, Germany, Sept. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- TRAVEL EASY announced the completion of a new round of USD 20 million funding from Haitong International. EACH Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor. Earlier, TRAVEL EASY had received millions of dollars in financing from PAGODA.
TRAVEL EASY has set up many branches around the world, including Frankfurt, Germany, Beijing and Wuhan in China, Prague, Czech Republic and Milan, Italy. After this round of funding, TRAVEL EASY will quickly grow into a comprehensive global shopping service platform that features a built-in digital tax refund service.
Directly hits the industry's pain points and enters the trillion-dollar market of shopping in and out of Europe
In recent years, the outbound travel market has continued to heat up in China. According to the speech by Dr. Prof. Dai Bin, Dean of China Tourism Academy, at the "2019 TRAVEL EASY, Belt and Road Eastern Europe Travel Retail Summit", the size of China's outbound tourism market and consumer spending in 2018 reached another record high, with nearly 150 million people spending over 120 billion US dollars. China is already the world's largest outbound travel market and the main driving force for the growth of the global outbound travel market.
The VAT rates in European countries easily reach 20% or more, making tax free one of the most effective tools to attract Chinese tourists' spending. But the traditional way to get a tax refund has three major pain points: "little" - low tax refund rate; "complicated" - the process of tax refund is complicated, and the tax refund form is easy to lose; "difficult" - tax tracking and customer service communication is difficult", so the tax-free shopping experience is not perfect for tourists.
Facing huge overseas consumer market and current industry pain points, TRAVEL EASY 's WeChat mini-program "TuiDuoDuo" provides a digital tax refund service with the highest tax refund rate in the market, effectively helping consumers enjoy a huge discount when shopping. Currently it has three core features: latest offers and discount information from hot European merchants, automatic filling of tax information, real-time tracking of tax refund status. By providing a safe and convenient tax-free shopping experience, TRAVEL EASY has entered the trillion-dollar shopping market in Europe.
A one-stop service platform for cross-border shopping with built-in tax refund service
TRAVEL EASY provides tourists with shopping options that match their travel routes, as well as merchant offers. It connects users and merchants before, during and after the journey with "shopping + tax refund" services. At the same time, it also provides a full-scenario closed-loop marketing services for merchants, which can accurately reverse the flow, and increase customer satisfaction and spending.
At present, the platform has partnered with top Chinese travel companies, well-known department stores in Europe, airport retail groups and international brands, including Galeries Lafayette, GALERIA Kaufhof, Leica, MCM, Swarovski, Botanicus and more. By integrating the top resources of China and Europe, TRAVEL EASY has built up an ecosystem that connects shopping tourists, overseas merchants, travel agencies and tour guides.
Advances reform of retail business in Europe
By the end of 2019, TRAVEL EASY will launch the PRE-ORDER e-commerce service, allowing travelers to purchase more popular products from other European countries that are not part of their trip. PRE-ORDER will remove the location restriction of travel shopping and help merchants expand their business online.
In the future, TRAVEL EASY also plans to remove the time limit of travel shopping through Internet thinking and technological innovation, create an industrial supply chain of cross-border goods, and drive the distribution of goods with consumption big data. TRAVEL EASY will have power to serve not only the tourists in Europe but also the whole Chinese consumer market. TRAVEL EASY will serve as a bridge between European retailers and Chinese purchasing power, and advance the reform of European retail business.
