With over 2 billion domestic tourists in 2011, an increase of 12% since last year, China’s travel industry is set to become the largest in the world by just 2015. On top of that, with average income on the rise, we are seeing a whole new generation of travelers who are well-informed and skilled in using online tools to plan their holidays.
There’s no doubt that China’s OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) are here to stay and will have a substantial impact on the industry. Reports state that up to 90% of Chinese travelers read reviews online before booking any holidays.
If there’s one way to improve your image, it’s by making an impact on travel review sites.
Some might respond that the typical Chinese customer doesn’t use the Internet to make reservations, and that the country’s service-oriented culture makes people pick up the phone rather than book online.
True, for now. It is also true however, that without a great review of your hotel/location there’s little chance that the 485 million potential guests will even look up your website and phone number to give you call.
Here’s a top 5 of the most used travel websites:
1 Qunar
2 Kuxun
3 Ctrip
4 17U
(information by Technode)
Qunar and Kuxun, both working on aggregator business models and collecting reviews from several different websites, occupy around 50% of the market. These are big fishes to catch, that’s for sure. As shown by the huge amount of money that China’s titan search engine ‘Baidu’ invested in Qunar this June, the company’s largest investment ever and so far the largest one in China’s online travel industry.