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South Korea’s leading hotel and mobile ticket-booking platform Yeogi Eottae is taking over MangoPlate, a restaurant search application, in a strategic move to absorb young consumers to its comprehensive service.

According to multiple industry sources on Thursday, Yeogi Eottae will buy MangoPlate and add must-visit restaurant contents to its platform. The addition is widely expected to create synergy as app users searching for accommodation are also likely to look for restaurant information. Financial terms were not disclosed.

MangoPlate is Korea’s largest restaurant recommendation service platform with 700,000 user reviews of over 200,000 restaurant database. Its monthly active users as of this year stand at 2 million.

MangoPlate provides information of restaurants every month by integrating big data and expert curation. Its core competitiveness is its artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that filters advertising and junk reviews.

Yeogi Eottae said that linking information of over 200,000 restaurants and 700,000 user reviews of MangoPlate to its application will help enhance overall brand competitiveness. The takeover will allow the company to reborn as a platform satisfying diverse consumer needs on top of price benefit.

According to independent research conducted by Yeogi Eottae, 70 percent of accommodation app users noted the most essential service that should be added is restaurant curation and reservation, underscoring the importance of providing restaurant contents to reflect trends of young consumers. The survey showed that 90 percent of Yeogi Eottae users said they are willing to make more use of the app if they are provided with restaurant recommendation service.

Yeogi Eottae plans to incorporate MangoPlate employees at its headquarters in Gangnam, southern Seoul, in September.

[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]