WorldHotel-Link

Worldhotel-link.com Limited (trading as WHL or whl.travel) is an online travel-services (accommodation and tour) booking network. The company is incorporated in Hong Kong and has offices in Ho Chi Minh City, Prague, Cape Town, Belo Horizonte, Sydney, Manila and Seattle.
Background
WHL started in 2002 as a project of the Mekong Private Sector Development Facility (MPDF) which is the technical advisory services arm of the International Finance Corporation (IFC, part of the World Bank Group) in the region covering Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
The first pilot site was established in 2002 in Siem Reap, Cambodia, site of the famous Angkor Wat temple complex. The pilot was done with the cooperation of the Siem Reap Angkor Hotel & Guesthouse Association and early success in Siem Reap led to requests for replication from hotel associations, first in Phnom Penh and then in Vientiane, Lao PDR. Sites were also established in Vietnam and, in 2005, WHL started adding destinations outside the Mekong, in Vanuatu, Samoa and Fiji to test the model in other environments. After successful pilots in these countries it was decided to spin the project off from the IFC to allow the model to be moved to the global market. On March 31, 2006, Worldhotel-link.com Limited was officially made a private company.
Current status
After spinning off from the IFC, WHL added tour bookings to the accommodation booking functionality, as well as instant bookings (booking from allotment), last-minute bookings and packaged accommodations and tours. At the end of 2008 WHL had 150 destination sites live in 60 countries. Projections are that by end March 2009 there will be 200 destinations live in 83 countries. WHL continues to work closely with development agencies such as the IFC, World Bank, IADB and USAID in launching destinations sites in many poor and conflict-affected countries/regions around the world.
To undertake consulting and training work associated with tourism development in developing countries WHL launched a consulting business, WHL Consulting, in July 2008 in a joint venture with Geosavvy Development LLC in the USA. WHL has also developed a program called Caring for the Destination as a means to encourage the adoption of sustainable tourism by accommodation and tour providers. In 2010, WHL Consulting launched a highly innovative new program called the Tourism Development Bank. In late 2011 Hotel Link Solutions started operating as a subsidiary of the WHL Group providing digital marketing solutions for the accommodation industry.
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