It’s a far cry from the potential this huge marketpresents, bogged down by the low level of credit card usage and online payment methods.
The report said at least 2.75 million Chinese booked hotel rooms, air tickets and other travel services on the Internet, up 72 percent from the previous year.
Analysts with the consulting company are optimistic about China’s online travel market, saying the number of users will more than double to 5.7 million in 2008, and hit 9 million by 2010.
The online sector is expected to be worth 6.5 billion yuan by 2010, analysts were quoted saying in China Daily.
They are optimistic based on burgeoning tourism, more online spending and improved online marketing systems.
Compared with the US onlinetravel market, with revenues of US$83 billion in 2006, China’smarket is still small.
In the US,online sales of travel services accounted for 30 percent of total tourism industry revenue in 2005 according to Merrill Lynch & Co.
By comparison, the percentage in China is less than one percent.
China’sonline travel market is cornered by NASDAQ-listed Ctrip.com – which accounted for 54.2 percent of the market last year – and eLong.com,which had 17.8 percent of the market.
Most Chinese travel websites do not offer payment methods, with customers completing the transaction offline.
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