A Chinese start-up in which Ctrip has a stake is making its first move outside Asia, choosing Manchester and Salford in the UK to kickstart its plans for Europe.
Mobike - which has raised $325 million in just over a year - is an app-enabled bicycle rental business which operates in 100 cities in China and Singapore and supports more than 20 million rides a say.
Users download the app and use GPS to locate the nearest available "mobike" and use a smartlock to access the bike.
Mobike's founder Weiwei Hu, said:
“We’re very excited to make Manchester and Salford Mobike’s first European partners. They have long been a European leader in culture, innovation and technology and were carefully selected as promising and highly-suited Mobike cities."
Steve Pyer, General Manager of Mobike UK, added:
“We are already in talks with a number of other cities around Europe, and are sure the successful pilot will be the first of many partnerships, allowing us to make cycling the most convenient and affordable choice for those in cities all around Europe.”
Various dignitaries from Manchester and Salford talked in terms of Mobike as part of a sustainable urban transport infrastructure.
But the involvement of Ctrip in Mobike's $215 million Series D round at the start of the year opens up the possibility of a commercial and/or technical connection between the bike rental firm and other travel suppliers.
At the time, Ctrip's chairman James Liang said: “Ctrip has been following Mobike’s development with great interest because we see it as not just a convenient everyday way of getting from A to B, but also an extremely valuable tool for travellers to explore and discover cities."
Last-mile, multimodal, live like a local are all travel concepts where smartphone-enabled bike hire could have a role to play although that is some way off. As well as Ctrip there is a multinational line-up of top drawers backers - including China's internet giant Tencent, German media house Bertelsmann, Singapore's sovereign fund Temasek and US-based investor Sequoia Capital - all of whom have deep pockets and an eye on the next big thing.