(Yicai) Aug. 27 -- Chinese budget hotel chain Home Inn Hotel Group will open e-sports-themed hotels with NIP Group, the first listed Chinese e-sports company.

Home Inn and NIP will set up a joint venture majority owned by the latter that will be responsible for the investment, operation, and management of the e-sports hotels, Shanghai-based Home Inn announced yesterday. The first hotel will open a few months after the establishment of the JV.

Mario Ho, a son of the late Macao casino tycoon Stanley Ho, acquired Chinese e-sports club eStar in 2020 and Swedish peer Ninjas in Pyjamas last year and merged them to form NIP with his business partner Hicham Chahine. NIP went public on the Nasdaq on July 26, raising USD20.3 million.

"The cooperation with NIP will help Home Inn further enrich its product lineup and enter the fast-growing e-sports hotel market," said Sun Jian, chairman and chief executive officer of Home Inn. "The JV will create an innovative e-sports hotel experience to meet guests' diverse needs and preferences."

"This strategic cooperation is of great value to both NIP and Home Inn," said Ho, who is also the chairman and CEO of the e-sports firm. "NIP will have the opportunity to expand into the accommodation industry and reach a wider range of customers through this cooperation."

The successful launch of China's first triple-A video game Black Myth: Wukong brought many opportunities to businesses along the upstream and downstream reaches of the video game and e-sport industries. For example, e-sports-themed hotels have become very popular.

Many e-sports hotels have been recently fully booked on Trip.Com, with those near university campuses being the most popular, according to data from the Chinese online travel agency. Searches for e-sports hotels surged 40 percent.

Nearly 70 percent of the people booking e-sports hotel rooms this summer were born in the 90s and 2000s, Trip.Com data also showed. Seventy-five percent of them were men.

Prices of rooms in e-sports hotels range from CNY300 to CNY600 (USD42 to USD84) per night, Yicai learned. Due to the popularity of Black Myth: Wukong, most e-sports hotels have seen their occupancy rate increase by 20 percent to 30 percent, and many of them have been fully booked recently.

Editor: Futura Costaglione