FindMyAdventure, Pakistan’s first and only online travel marketplace, has acquired KTown Rooms. The announcement was made at Pakistan’s largest entrepreneurship conference 021 Disrupt. The official acquisition date is set as December 1, 2019, and rooms will be open for booking through FindMyAdventure from December 15, 2019, onwards.
Since FindMyAdventure’s inception in 2016, the start-up has booked over 10,000+ customers and has brought onboard 100+ tour operators, vendors and guides throughout Pakistan.
Earlier this year, FindMyAdventure announced an undisclosed six-figure seed funding round for its online travel marketplace. The start-up was was also a recipient of U.S.A.I.D.’s Small Medium Enterprise Activity (SMEA) Innovation Grant, as part of its Challenge Fund. Their aim is to modify the perceptions people have regarding Pakistan, by changing the way they experience it.
KTown Rooms is a Karachi-based technology-driven budget hotel network that aims to provide every property in the country a great platform to raise its standard. The platform started reinventing the hospitality business in 2018.
With this acquisition, the details of which remain undisclosed, FindMyAdventure has established itself as a leading player in Pakistan’s hospitality sector. According to Jehan Ara, the President of the Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT, the procurement brings together two promising names in travel.
“This step offers FMA the chance to increase its offerings, benefitting consumers in the process,” she explained.
Further explaining how FMA rooms will make a difference, Jehan Ara stated,
FMA is already an established name in adventure tourism. The addition of FMA rooms means that it will go a long way in complementing the core of the business while making travel more accessible and affordable for its consumers.
FindMyAdventure lists tourism experiences from tour operators throughout the country and allows potential travelers to book tours online. FindMyAdventure also offers travelers the option to design custom-made tours. The platform benefits tour guides and tour operators by providing them with a steady stream of customers and ease of booking and payment solutions to streamline their operations. The start-up focuses on ease of processing and customer satisfaction which has helped build trust among its customers.
With this acquisition, the start-up will now allow users to book standardized rooms in a reasonable budget. Most importantly FMA, as a trusted brand, will ensure that quality is maintained in order to provide a perfect user experience.
With an improved security situation and a marked uptick in the number of foreign tourists visiting Pakistan in recent years, tourism in the country has been on the rise. According to a report by Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation, the number of international tourists visiting Pakistan reached 1.75 million in 2017, a 300% increase from the numbers in 2013. The number of domestic travelers also increased by 30% during the same period to reach 38.3 million in 2017. Furthermore, Pakistan was ranked as one of the world’s top adventure travel destinations in 2018.
