Earlier this week, Singapore-based restaurant reservations provider Chope has announced that it will now also offer its online reservation services to the thousands of restaurants listed on popular lifestyle site City Weekend.
As mentioned, Chope (which is Singaporean slang for the verb ‘reserve’) is an online reservations service similar to Opentable, and is popular in Singapore and Hong Kong. Member restaurants pay a fee to Chope, which provides them with a reservations backend system, and allows bookings to be made directly with said restaurants on its website. In March 2013, the company raised US $2.5 million in a round of Series B funding.
With the partnership between Chope and Ringier (the group which owns City Weekend), diners will be able to secure tables at their favourite restaurants for free via both City Weekend and Chope’s websites and apps. The partnership initially covers Shanghai and Beijing, but may include more cities such as Guangzhou and Suzhou as the influence of City Weekend grows throughout China.
“Almost every English-speaking person in China’s largest cities uses City Weekend to discover restaurants,” said Chope CEO Arrif Ziaudeen in a statement, “And we believe those readers will also appreciate an easier way to make reservations that doesn’t require them to call repeatedly and shout down a phone line!”
China was first introduced to Chope as a reservation service with pizza chain PizzaExpress in Hong Kong, and now also services their outlets in Shanghai.
“As we showed with PizzaExpress and hundreds of other clients, online restaurant reservations is well received in Asia, and we look forward to making it available at more restaurants in Shanghai and beyond,” said Ziaudeen.
“City Weekend is excited to forge this new partnership with Chope, making restaurant reservations faster and easier for all of our listed restaurants and for diners in China as a whole,” said Ringier China General Manager Kenny Zhou.