Travel apps about more than just discounts
Print Edition
THE popularity of smartphones and tablets have enabled Internet users to plan and book trips while taking the subway to work, sipping a hot beverage in a cafe or anywhere else with Wi-Fi.
Vivien Chen, a young Shanghai office worker, said she went to Japan during the National Day holiday and booked hotels through several websites more than two months in advance, which made her trip more convenient.
“The comments and reviews on online travel communities and forums have made planning trips so much easier,” she said.
Reading travel notes and reviews and then deciding one’s own itinerary has become a part of the travel experience with user generated content starting to play a bigger role in the decision making process of many travelers.
Travel websites are no longer just about selling air tickets and tour packages at a discount as consumers have a variety of demands in the mobile Internet era. And companies have realized there’s money to be made by meeting those demands.
Smartphone apps
China’s online travel market is expected to be worth 280 billion yuan (US$45.82 billion) this year, up 27 percent from 2013, according to domestic Internet consultancy iResearch Inc.
The consultancy’s latest research report said mobile Internet will play a much bigger role in the online travel market as smartphones are becoming indispensable in people’s daily lives.
Industry watchers said mobile devices would become a crucial channel for online travel booking.
Leading online travel agents like Ctrip and eLong have announced similar plans to put more focus on smartphone applications and put more resources into offering discounts to those who book through mobile devices.
Qunar.com, a website that compares airline ticket and travel package prices, said online sales of tourist attraction admission increased more than six times from a year go during this year’s National Day holiday. More than 70 percent of these orders where placed through mobile devices.
E-commerce juggernaut Alibaba launched an independent online travel business unit called Alitrip to tap into the booming demand for leisure trips.
Currently there are about 10,000 merchants on Alibaba’s platform selling hotels, flights and vacation packages.
Alitrip also announced a 100 million (US$16.36 million) consumer guarantee fund to provide quick and more convenient refunds to customers who have booked hotels or flights on Alitrip.
Li Shaohua, general manager of Alitrip, said he expects bookings to more than double to 43 billion yuan this year.
On so-called Singles Day, November 11, more than 170,000 travel packages or vacations were booked on Tmall last year.
Alibaba decided to launch an independent unit to offer better service to customers since it’s different from purchasing clothes, accessories and general merchandise from Tmall and Taobao.
At the same time, the increasing number of outbound travelers also provided huge growth potential for online travel agents and various kinds of travel service providers.
Last year, China’s travel-related spending hit 2.94 trillion yuan, with less than 10 percent of that coming through online channels.
The number of outbound travelers is expected to surge to a record high of 115 million this year. Last year, 98.19 million outbound trips were made. In the first five months this year, the number of Chinese who traveled overseas increased 18.8 percent from the same period a year ago, Shao Qiwei, director of the China Tourism Bureau, said at a recent industry forum.
Hundreds of smartphone applications have also enabled travelers to easily search for vacation packages as well as read or post comments about their own trips.
Mafengwo, an online forum for travel notes and reviews, is publishing dozens of digital travel catalogues that it is compiling based on content provided by forum visitors and travel writers. The digital catalogues can be downloaded for free from its website.
Ahead of this year’s National Day’s holiday, the catalogues were downloaded 220 million times. On an average day, more than 3 million people are using the travel catalogues and user reviews to plan their own trips. More high-quality user-generated content in return raised user frequency and generated heated discussions.
In the investment field, smartphone applications have attracted attention from venture capital firms as investors are betting on a bright future in online travel services.
Ctrip has invested in Hotel Manager, a smartphone application for booking hotels, and Hotels Tonight, an application for last-minute bookings of cheap hotels. Venture capital firm IDG invested 30 million yuan in the apps.
Alibaba Group last year made a strategic investment in online travel forum QYer.com, and has been using the website’s large viewership to drive sales to travel agents that own market places on Taobao or Tmall.
It also teamed with China Broadband Capital and invested US$20 million in overseas travel package Baicheng.com.
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