A highly anticipated cross-industry collaboration, widely expected to succeed, quickly bore fruit during its honeymoon phase.
On August 6, e-commerce giant JD.com’s business travel channel and Huitang Network, China’s largest venue sourcing platform, officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement at the Beijing National Convention Center. Recently, both parties released a related sales report, which showed that sales reached 2.1 million yuan within just one month of their collaboration. “Partnering with JD.com Business Travel was the perfect match for Huitang Network,” joked Tang Liang, CEO of Huitang Network.
The joint effort by JD.com and Huitang Network to build China’s largest MICE e-commerce platform marks the first collaboration between a MICE industry procurement platform and an e-commerce giant. Industry experts regard this as an epoch-making event for China’s MICE sector, which will profoundly influence the industry’s upgrade and future development, further accelerating its digitalization and internet transformation.
China’s conference and exhibition industry is currently undergoing deep restructuring in the internet era. Many traditional MICE companies lack standardization, and the mismatch between market demand and available information has become a major bottleneck. Under such circumstances, large-scale transactions like conference procurement struggle to complete even basic tasks such as proposal discussions and price negotiations before the event. Moreover, many conference procurement platforms have not technically enabled direct connections between users and venue providers, nor do they offer payment systems. As a result, users cannot make instant or one-stop purchases, making it difficult to close the online-offline transaction loop—severely impacting the efficiency of MICE companies in organizing events.
Relying on its vast inventory of venues across 152 cities nationwide, Huitang Network began exploring the O2O model as early as 2012. Thanks to its outstanding contributions in this field, it was twice listed on the Forbes “China’s Top 100 Most Promising Non-Listed Companies.” Through the integration of a series of products such as Huibang, Huichang Cloud, and Hu Tong, Huitang Network successfully resolved O2O challenges including transaction loops and online payments. It also pioneered interest-free financial loan services for clients, establishing itself as a comprehensive service provider capable of offering integrated solutions for various MICE enterprise needs. The company has been hailed as the “Alibaba of the MICE industry.” Notably, Huibang innovatively introduced online payment functionality to the conference sourcing platform. After event procurement clients log in to Huibang through real-name authentication, their requirements are instantly transmitted to venue providers via Huichang Cloud, another Huitang product. Venue providers can then respond quickly based on current availability—much like the popular ride-hailing app UBER—thus completing the full transaction loop.
Following the “marriage” between Huitang Network and JD.com, JD.com Business Travel provided Huitang Network with access to 500,000 corporate clients and substantial market demand, while Huitang Network offered JD.com’s large clients more efficient business travel solutions. Purchasing and payments were streamlined through the platforms of both JD.com and Huitang Network. Their collaboration quickly yielded results, achieving impressive sales of 2.1 million yuan within just one month—fully validating the strategic vision of both parties.
One of JD.com’s major clients, TMTPost—the first domestic media community for the TMT (Technology, Media, and Telecom) industry—serves as a prime example of successfully hosting events efficiently with the help of Huitang Network. On August 26, the “IT Value+ Industrial Internet: 2015 Retail Transformation Forum” hosted by TMTPost was successfully held at the Beijing Wanda Sofitel Hotel. “In the past, organizing an event required us to search for venues online a month in advance, then communicate multiple times with venue providers. If the options didn’t meet our needs, we had to start over. This time, through the JD.com Business Travel channel, we quickly found a venue that closely matched our requirements, and all payment procedures could be handled in one go. The efficiency of event planning has significantly improved,” said a TMTPost representative involved in organizing the forum.
Industry professionals believe that through its partnership with JD.com, Huitang Network will solidify its position as a key channel for MICE industry procurement, deeply reshaping the MICE service ecosystem. “Taking this collaboration with JD.com as an opportunity, Huitang Network will continue to help MICE companies gain more direct opportunities to serve large enterprises. By leveraging Huitang’s tools to enhance service capabilities and gain greater market competitiveness, we aim to drive comprehensive digital upgrades across China’s incentive travel industry, ensuring the healthy and orderly growth of the entire meetings and events sector,” said Tang Liang.