One of the things that’s most exciting about being in travel in Asia these days is that you can now see and feel the palpable effects of Chinese travellers.
What was just talk and numbers a couple of years ago is becoming tangible. From Dominican Republic to Paris to Bhutan to Dublin, Chinese outbound travellers are fanning out everywhere and destinations, cruises, hotel brands and airlines are all experiencing an uplift from the market.
35% of Chinese travellers travel solo, according to the PhoCusWright “China Consumer Travel Report”
The most dramatic changes are happening online and as the market grows, the competition is intensifying. Battles are being fought by the giants and guess what happens when elephants fight.
First it was the price war between Ctrip and Elong, the two leading OTAs, and now it’s between Ctrip and Qunar, an OTA and a meta-search, although these days it’s no longer clear what is the difference between an OTA and a meta-search.
Which is precisely the reason why this week, Ctrip announced its decision to remove its hotel products from Qunar.
It stated that its decision was made “because Ctrip believes that the site has largely abandoned its original model as a neutral online travel products search platform”, according to the report in Sina Tech.
“As described by Ctrip, Qunar has cooperated with several travel agencies to give preferential placement of hotel listings at the top of the Qunar site to said agencies. The customer service hotline provided by many of these top listings is in fact Qunar’s own customer service hotline, implying that Qunar is now giving priority placement to its own listings and is no longer acting as a neutral listings platform.
“Ctrip believes that Qunar’s decision to merge its total solutions (TTS) system, through which users directly complete transactions from third-party providers on the Qunar site, with its own online travel agency (OTA) business, constitutes unfair competition, spurring Ctrip’s decision to remove its travel products.”
The blurring of models is not only happening within China of course.
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