Investing.com - Hong Kong-listed Tencent Holdings Ltd (HK:0700) is leading a $250 million investment in Beijing-based online travel agency Mafengwo Network Technology.
The company helps Chinese travellers to look for destination and sight-seeing recommendations. It is often known as the Chinese version of TripAdvisor.
According to a statement by Mafengwo, it plans to use the funds to develop artificial intelligence technology and improve user recommendations.
Since 2015, the company began letting its users book hotels through its website and has doubled transaction volumes annually over the past four years, Bloomberg reported.
The Bloomberg report also cited data from consultancy firm iResearch which estimated that China’s online travel sector is expected to grow 18% to CNY 988 billion ($143 billion) of transactions this year.
In 2018, Mafengwo was plagued by accusations of fake reviews on its platform, with reports suggesting that it used bots and hired writers to copy review content from competitors.
Mafengwo sued some of the disseminators and said the accusations were based on “distorted facts” and were part of “an organized attack.”