Meituan did it again.

Not long ago, news came from the hotel industry that Meituan was about to invest in the hotel group Dongcheng International Group (referred to as "Dongcheng Group"), with an amount of about 1 billion yuan and a shareholding ratio of up to 20%. Subsequently, the investment community asked Meituan for confirmation, and the other side said "no comment" on the investment.

This will be the first time for Meituan to bet on an offline hotel. At present, the domestic hotel industry is recovering from the trough, Meituan at this time a decisive move, can be called bottom. And Meituan focuses on the field of high-end hotels, this site is the last highland of Ctrip, the two sides are on the brink of war.

Now, Meituan is sweeping both online and offline, and this borderless giant is getting farther and farther away and moving faster and faster. It is an indisputable fact that, immersed in the Chinese Internet, Meituan and Wang Xing are the last opponents that everyone can't get around.

Come fiercely, 1 billion copy the bottomMeituan accidentally bought a stake in a hotel.

Unexpectedly, Meituan bought a large stake in a hotel.

According to industry executives, the overall valuation of Dongcheng International Group is about 5 billion yuan, and this round of Meituan's investment may be about 1 billion yuan. Meituan responded to the investment community that he would not comment on the news, and Dongcheng Group did not have a definite response.

The investment community has learned that Dongcheng Group, founded in 2006, is a brand of SS City Hotel Kuala Lumpur, with 15 hotel brands such as Yi Cheng Hotel, Ishang Hotel and Berman Hotel, and has more than 25000 hotels worldwide (including preparation). It has more than 35 million paying members. According to the China Hotel Group TOP50 report 2020 released by the China Hotel Association, Dongcheng Group currently ranks sixth. In the mid-range hotel market, Dongcheng Group is the second echelon hotel group after Huazhu, Jinjiang and the first Travel Service.

Actually,Meituan's ambition to join the hotel has long been apparent.According to industry insiders, Meituan has been looking for suitable hotel companies to invest, not only Dongcheng Group-- earlier, news came from the hotel industry that Meituan had approached Shangmei Life Group for investment, but there was no follow-up.

In 2018, Meituan Hotel became the product with the highest market share in the online hotel reservation industry, and even launched a pilot group purchase project for Gaoxing Hotel, jointly signed hotel groups and Dianping's "must stay" list of businessmen. to introduce hotel pre-sale products with the characteristics of low-price deep discount, buy-as-you-go, unused and refund at any time to consumers, and enter the hotel market on a large scale.

And inside Meituan,A secret department is also rising quietly.Over the past six years since its establishment, Meituan's wine and travel division has been the company's largest source of profits. According to its quarterly report, Meituan's income from the hotel, hotel and tourism business in the first three quarters of 2020 was 6.48 billion yuan, an increase of 4.8 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Under the epidemic, the hotel industry is one of the industries that have been hit hard. Ji Qi, founder of Huazhu Group Limited, stressed in 2020 that "there is no better time than to invest in a hotel today."

Now, the domestic hotel industry is recovering from the trough. Meituan made a decisive move at this time, which can be called the bottom. Some analysts believe that what Meituan takes a fancy to is that the business layout of Dongcheng Group Hotel can make up for its deficiency in the layout of hotel resources. The offline hotel dispute in the OTA industry has begun.

Meituan entered the offline business.The hotel is making waves again.

Sneaking into the hotel, Meituan met Trip.com again.

Prior to this, Meituan and Trip.com had already begun to fight.When he first set foot in the wine travel market, Meituan positioned himself as a mid-and low-end hotel online reservation, and his impression in the minds of users was that it was cheap and affordable. At that time, Trip.com, Qunar and eLong OTA were engaged in a fierce battle, and they did not notice Meituan, who was frantically signing up merchants in Henan, Shandong and other places.

With Meituan's flow advantage highlighted, the market share of Meituan accommodation gradually increased, and began to attack the Gaoxing hotel market, hand-to-hand combat with Trip.com. As for Trip.com, the most direct measure is to set up an exclusive contract, which forbids signing hotels to cooperate with Meituan. Businesses who violate the agreement will be offline or restricted.

At that time, Trip.com 's counterattack once gave Meituan a lot of resistance, limiting Meituan's flow advantage to the sinking market and unable to gain more market share in the more profitable Gaoxing hotel market. Until 2018, Meituan realized the overall surpassing of Trip.com products by night volume between hotels. Now, the two sides meet again in the middle and high end. I have to say, this site is the last highland of Ctrip system.

So how does Meituan target this market? In fact,After the epidemic in 2020, the product advantages of Gaoxing Hotel gradually emerged.According to Trip.com, Gaoxing Hotel is the hotel category that recovers fastest after the epidemic. In June, Trip.com released its quarterly report for 2020. Liang Jianzhang, executive chairman of the board of directors, said, "the recovery of Gaoxing Hotel has significantly exceeded other businesses. Travel is the spiritual need of human beings. We believe that as the COVID-19 epidemic recedes, tourism will eventually recover and reach new heights. "

It is predicted that the proportion of luxury, mid-and high-end and economical hotels in China's hotel industry will transition from 1:3:6 to 1:4:5, and the proportion of mid-and high-end hotels will continue to expand and stabilize at about 44%. As a result, it is estimated that the high-end market will have at least 3-8 years of rapid growth, and the number of guest rooms will reach 881-11.01 million, which is still 76% more than the current growth space of 120%.

This is a rare hot cake in the hotel industry.Cheng Yilong also set his sights on this territory.On January 5, the official website of Tongcheng Yilong also announced that it had signed a strategic investment agreement with Gaoxing Hotel Perlin Hotel Group to make a strategic investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in the Perlin Hotel. This is also the first capital action after Cheng Yilong upgraded the accommodation department to a wine and travel business group.

In addition, in this war situation, Vienna, the whole season, Yaduo, Fengfeng, Heyi and so on competed one after another. Behind these brands are domestic head hotel groups such as Jinjiang Hotel, Huazhu Group Limited and first Travel Hotel, which are engaged in a fierce battle around the middle and high-end market. Meituan's entry has stirred the originally calm hotels and intensified the battle for middle and high-end hotels.

Attack in all directionsUnexpectedly, everyone's final opponent was Wang Xing.

Where is the boundary of Meituan?

An unlimited game is playing within the company. Nowadays, consumers are inseparable from Meituan in their daily life, such as eating, drinking and making merry. Travel, payment, hotel travel, local life. Meituan attacked in all directions, constantly expanding his business territory and building a huge ecological empire.

Even so, Meituan never stopped his pace. As early as the announcement of the 2019 financial results, Meituan once again sent an important signal: will continue to invest heavily in new business. "We will focus on the 'Food+Platform' strategy and continue to increase investment in new business areas such as fresh retail and e-cycling," Wang said. "

In addition to Meituan shopping, Meituan also entered a battlefield-community group buying.In July 2020, Meituan announced the establishment of a "selection Division" to enter the community group buying track, which is headed by Chen Liang, senior vice president of Meituan and a member of S-team. As of November 20 last year, Meituan has covered 191 cities in 23 provinces. And Meituan is still increasing support for this business, and will invest billions of yuan in Meituan in the future.

A giant has risen. Today, from group buying to takeout, from movie tickets to wine travel, Meituan has also entered a number of tracks such as taxi hailing, payment, logistics, supply chain and even opened an offline retail store. It can be said that in every subdivision of Meituan, there are strong enemies.

Looking back to 2020, Meituan's share price has been rising all the time. Since its lowest point in mid-March 2020, Meituan has risen more than 200%, a real interpretation of the stock price three times in a row. As of press time, Meituan's share price is HK $307, with a market capitalization of more than HK $1.8 trillion.

Meituan, who has no boundaries, has stirred up the Internet. Entrepreneurs in all fields are beginning to find that they have to face more than just the problem of standing in line with BAT.Now we have to beware of a sharper opponent-Meituan.Wang Xing, who has always been secretive, is becoming more and more domineering.