Zomato withdraws from Australian Market

The hospitality sector remains charred as the world adapts to a COVID-normal. While the pandemic has seen many restaurateurs pivot their operations, others have needed to scale back their businesses, or even pull out of the trade altogether.

The latest hospitality setback sees Zomato withdrawing its operations from the Australian, New Zealand and Portuguese markets.

“We have decided to shut our local operations in these markets. While we are grateful for all the love we have garnered from our users, restaurant community, and all other partners, we are realigning our market strategy as per our long-term vision. We will continue to manage the platform remotely from India and are making every effort to support our teams,” said a spokesperson for the company.

Launched in New Delhi, in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal, Zomato quickly became one of the largest food aggregators in the world. Gaining a strong foothold in the Australian market after it acquired Urbanspoon in 2015 for an estimated $US60 million ($82 million).

The company commenced operations in Australia with the ambitious goal of revolutionising the online experience for diners and restaurants alike. Combining blogger and user-generated content with restaurant information and social content to help patrons determine where they would most like to eat.

In Australia, Zomato originally started as a directory before moving to online ordering and delivery services. It began with 25,000 listings from Sydney and Melbourne restaurants before moving into other major cities including Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.  

In recent years, Zomato also launched Zomato Gold, a premium subscription service specifically designed to quell other high commission delivery platforms and encourage patrons to eat out. Subscribers were incentivised by receiving exclusive discounts and offers when they visited participating restaurants. When they launched their newsletter and digest “The Sauce” here in Australia our Founder Chrissy Symeonakis worked on this campaign and pulled the trigger on the campaign being deployed to millions sent out via the MyGuestlist system.

Being long term supporters of the platform, the Creative Little Soul team are saddened by the news and the inevitable job losses. With support and staff removed from our locale we can also expect delays in commnuication and a longer wait on any requests.

The platform offered many restaurant owners an opportunity to communicate more effectively with their customers whilst managing their online presence. While it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows the platform did also have a host of additional (AND FREE) marketing tools we tapped into and used to the utmost.

While Zomato is set to discontinue offering a range of services from December 2020, the company will still continue to function as a restaurant search and discovery platform. Offering customers in-depth information about restaurants, such as restaurant menus, pictures, ratings and telephone numbers, where such information is available.

We wish Zomato all the best in its future and would like to thank the team for servicing the Australian hospitality industry and their staff and team always being awesome to us, sharing many industry stats and insight with the team at Creative Little Soul.