July 2, 2015

- C2C tour and activity booking marketplace bolsters
Rakuten Travels offerings across Asia -

Tokyo, July 2, 2015 - Rakuten, Inc. today announced that it has acquired a majority stake in Voyagin Pte. Ltd., operator of Voyagin, a leading platform to discover and book unique travel experiences. The marketplace focuses on tours and activities across Asia.

Voyagin's mission is to help travelers (guests) discover and book unique travel experiences (activities) from its C2C marketplace. The marketplace empowers local businesses and individuals (hosts) to develop tours and activities that will excite, inspire and deliver memorable travel experiences to their guests. Voyagin currently features over 1,700*1 activities, including tickets to museums and shows, cultural activities, romantic dinners, adventure experiences, and private guides, among many others. Services are bookable at over 50 destinations in Asia and can be made in advance or at the destination via its mobile-optimized website. The site is available in English, Japanese and Chinese (traditional/simplified).

Rakuten operates Rakuten Travel, a travel reservation service that boasts the largest number of affiliated lodging facilities in Japan at 29,550*2 and offers a wide variety of travel plans. It also offers sites in seven different languages to help ease the process of discovering and booking accommodation and travel plans in Japan.

The number of foreign visitors to Japan is expected to see strong year-on-year growth due to the depreciation of the yen, an increase in the number of international flights driven by low-cost carriers (LCC), and the easing of visa requirements in Southeast Asia, among other contributing factors. Additionally, the Japanese government has clear ambitions to build Japan into a tourist destination with a view towards the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2020.

Through its investment into Voyagin, Rakuten will strengthen its inbound tourism business in Japan, focusing mainly on visitors from Southeast Asia, for which strong growth is expected.

*1 No. of activities as of April 1, 2015
*2 No. of Rakuten Travel's affiliated lodging facilities as of May 1, 2015

Overview of Voyagin Pte. Ltd.

Name

Voyagin Pte. Ltd.

Head office

306 Tanglin Road, Singapore 247973

Representative position
Name

Director and CEO
Masashi Takahashi

Date founded
(Date of service launch)

January 2011
(December 2012)

No. of Employees

13 employees

About Voyagin Pte. Ltd.

Voyagin Pte. Ltd. operates Voyagin (https://www.govoyagin.com, English site), a leading C2C-style tours and activities marketplace in Asia with over 1,700*1 things to do in over 50 destinations, including more than 1,000 experiences (activities) in Japan concentrated in and around Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Okinawa. Its website features its experiences including ticket to museums and shows, cultural activities, romantic dinners, adventure experiences, and private guides bookable in English, Japanese, and Chinese (traditional/simplified), in advance or in destination via its mobile-optimized website.

Launched in 2012, Voyagin provides a trusted platform for tours and activities providers (hosts) in Asia to list their experiences; its team of community managers work with each host to curate their activities both online and during the experience, ensuring their quality. Backed by its 100% satisfaction guarantee, multilingual customer support, and verified reviews from actual guests, Voyagin is one of the best places for travelers visiting Asia to discover and book their next local experience.

About Rakuten Travel

Rakuten Travel is one of Japan's leading hotel reservation websites. The service offers Japan's broadest selection of domestic travel accommodation listings at 29,550 (as of May 1, 2015). With offices in 12 countries, Rakuten Travel is rapidly expanding its international operations and is viewable in 7 languages (English, Japanese, French, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Korean, Thai and Bahasa Indonesian).

About Rakuten

Rakuten, Inc. (4755:Tokyo), is one of the world's leading Internet services companies. We provide a variety of products and services for consumers and businesses, with a focus on e-commerce, finance, and digital content. Since 2012, Rakuten has been ranked among the world's 'Top 20 Most Innovative Companies' in Forbes magazine's annual list. Rakuten is expanding worldwide and currently operates throughout Asia, Europe, the Americas and Oceania. Founded in 1997, Rakuten is headquartered in Tokyo, with over 12,000 employees and partner staff worldwide.http://global.rakuten.com/corp/.

distributed by