Qunar takes stake in major Chinese offline travel agency consortium
Chinese online travel giant Qunar has made its largest ever investment in one of China’s biggest offline retail travel agency businesses.
Qunar said it is investing an undisclosed sum in Traveling Bestone, which has 3,500 franchised offline travel agencies across China.
Qunar said it hopes the deal will help transform consumer behaviour in China which is still heavily reliant on offline business.
"Most tour packages in China are sold offline, and this deal will help to bring more of this business online," Jenna Qian, Qunar head of communications.
"We will operate a combined B2B platform, sharing inventory, so Bestone’s tour packages will be available to our customers, and our packages will be available to Bestone customers as well.
"This will give Qunar access to more suppliers and more purchasers."
The partnership will also result in a co-branded travel app being developed called ‘Zhanglvtong,’ which will be targeted at Bestone’s mainly offline customer base, offering incentives to embrace mobile booking.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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