China International Travel Service, one of the few tourism enterprises among the “Top 500 Enterprises of China”, has established China International Travel Service Zhejiang Company. together with Zhejiang Paradise International Travel Service Company with a total investment of CNY10 million.
It is reported that Hangzhou currently has 461 travel agencies but only a few of those are of large scale and famous brands.
Xu Liang, the general manager and director of CITS Zhejiang and the former general manager of Zhejiang Paradise International Travel Service, told media that with the unique resources of …

Chinese online travel service provider Ctrip.com has announced that it will compensate consumers for any differences in online booking prices.
Ctrip.com said that, from March 10, 2010, all the room rates it provides on its website for hotels in China will be the lowest available. If any consumers find room rates lower than those on its website, it will pay them compensation to the value of three times the price difference.
This is the first time ever that a travel service provider in China has promised to compensate consumers for price …

By Joab Jackson, IDG News Service
During a New York panel discussion on social media and digital activism held Monday, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei secured a promise from Twitter creator Jack Dorsey that his company will offer a Chinese version of its social networking service.
Though Dorsey quickly qualified his response by noting that it may be some time yet before the service will be available for the country, due to technical and legal hurdles.
The exchange took place at the Paley Center in New York, in a session sponsored by …

Chinese authorities have warned major partners of Google’s China’s based search engine that they must comply with censorship laws even if Google does not, an industry expert with knowledge of the notice said Sunday.
Chinese government information authorities warned some of Google’s biggest Web partners on Friday that they should prepare backup plans in case Google ceases censoring the results of searches on its local Chinese-language search engine, said the expert, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation by the government.
The warning was the latest indication that …

In view of the hardening of positions on both sides, Google reportedly has chalked out a detailed strategy for closure of its search engine in China, and it is almost final now as the talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent deadlock since January of this year. The Chinese government on Friday warned the US based search company, that it was not prepared to compromise on internet censorship with Google in China.

To recap on what happened, it was December last year when the Google – China …

ChinaTravelTrends.com, new interactive platform for China outbound tourism, launched in Berlin, with backing of PATA

Chinese affluent citizens increasingly like to travel abroad, but distrust official information.
With more than 50 million outbound travellers expected to leave China in 2010, the Chinese outbound market is attracting more and more attention of destinations around the world.
As part of the ITB Convention 2010, a workshop organised by the German-based COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute and the Chinese company Dragon Trail, presented Social Media Marketing as the most …

Ctrip.com International Ltd. (Nasdaq: CTRP | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) assures customers that they will get the lowest price for online booking of hotel rooms and promises compensation if they are cheated.
The promise is made in partnership with hotel chains at home and abroad, including …

Business social media can unlock the door to the world’s second-largest economy
A surge in Chinese exports for January has kicked the world’s fastest-growing economy back into life, at least in the eyes of Westerners. But China is still a difficult place to do business. Is there an opportunity for business social networks to break down trade barriers?
China is celebrating its 4,708th year. It is the year of the tiger and the country is safe in the knowledge that its economy is back on track. The trade figures make promising reading. …

China’s online travel booking users in 2009 reached 30.24 million, increasing 77.9 percent from the previous year, according to a report released recently by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).
Ctrip, the one-stop China travel service, also says its number of members has reached 30 million.
Online travel booking in 2009 saw rapid development and has become a highlight of the tourism market. According to statistics released by the CNNIC, online travel booking users in 2009 increased 77.9 percent to reach 13.24 million. The growth rate is second only to online payment …

A great article to further understand the growth of China – by Michael Elliott, International Editor for CNN
(Fortune Magazine) — What economic crisis? After a blip last winter, China is growing at more than 8% a year, and the scale and speed at which the country is building a modern infrastructure are mind-boggling.
But once you’ve absorbed the metrics — the size of its trade surplus, the thousands of miles of high-speed railways, the new ports and highways — a nagging question comes into focus: Sure, China can grow, but can …

Social networks were once the domain of the young and tech-savvy. Not anymore, as Facebook reports a huge growth in older users last year. Also in China has the 35+ user base of doubled year over year.
Picture a social network user. Once upon a time it was easy – they were pimply teens huddled in messy bedrooms. Or young professionals organising their social lives. These days, however, they’re becoming far harder to categorise.
Last year Facebook reported huge growth in the 25 to 54 age group. After a feverish year of …

South Florida is starting to court the next big thing in tourism: visitors from China.
Broward and Palm Beach counties are working with state tourism agency Visit Florida to lure Chinese tourists, providing materials for travel trade shows in China and welcoming delegations of Chinese travel agents and press to help spread the word about what South Florida offers.
On a recent Friday, a group of eight Chinese travel writers visited Fort Lauderdale, taking a water taxi tour, shopping on Las Olas Boulevard, as well as sampling shrimp and steak at Shula’s …

Chinese online travel website company eLong Inc. reported its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2009.
Total revenues at eLong.com for the fourth quarter increased 18% year-on-year to CNY106.9 million and net revenues increased 18% year-on-year to CNY100.9 million. Operating income in the fourth quarter was CNY2.4 million compared to operating loss of CNY10.3 million in the prior year period. Net income in the fourth quarter was CNY1.0 million compared to net loss of CNY8.2 million in the prior year period.
Total revenues in 2009 …

China’s position in the tourism development in the world has been rising, the fourth largest entry receiving country in the world and the largest exit tourist source country in Asia. From 2000 to 2008, the total revenues of Chinese tourism increased by 12.5% annually (by CNY). In 2008, China totally received tourists about 1.89 billion man-time, rising by 5.9% of last year, realizing the tourism revenues of 1.16 trillion CNY ?166 billion USD?, increased by 5.8% of last year.
The slowdown of economy growth negatively affected the tourism, leading to the …

The state-owned newspaper The Global Times has run a particularly open article about the extensive controls on the internet within China and their effect on users and Internet companies. If you’re pressed for time to read the whole thing, DigiCha posts some choice quotes.

Douban, a Chinese social networking service website, received $10 million in venture capital from its second round of fundraising on January 25, after raising $2 million in 2006. Photo: CFP
He couldn’t take it anymore.
When Hong Kong writer and poet Liao Weitang found his online photo album had …

Preference Of Wealthy Mainland Tourists For Upscale Malls, Luxury Outlets Hits Department Stores Hard
Chinese luxury shoppers typically prefer upscale shopping malls to all-in-one department stores, as Shanghai’s Plaza 66 attests (Image via Flickr)

Last week, Jing Daily translated an article about Chinese tourists outspending Japanese 2-to-1 at a number of famous South Korean department stores. According to that article, visitors from mainland China now account for more sales than ever at some of Seoul’s most fashionable and expensive stores, and it’s not unknown for one-day tourists to drop hundreds of thousands …

The online video business in China is seeing explosive growth, as Chinese consumers learn how to capture and watch video and as Chinese advertisers seek to boost their branding. Several several emerging Chinese companies are scrambling to exploit it — so far, few U.S. companies are there.
Baidu, the leading Chinese search engine company, said today it has raised $50 million from private equity firm Providence Equity Partners to pump into Baidu’s new online video unit. The unit, a separate corporate entity called Qiyi, is licensing premium video content and running ads …

Cissy Ding says she finally gave in at the start of the year and joined China’s social networking bandwagon, setting up an account on local micro-blogging service Weibo.
“If I hadn’t gotten started, I would have felt totally lame, and out of touch,” says Ding, an editor at a women’s magazine.
China’s domestic social media sites like Weibo are booming thanks to their better knowledge of the world’s largest Internet market — and the censorship stifling foreign rivals like Facebook, Twitter, and Google-owned YouTube.
The 384 million people now online in China, where …

Social media remains the hot topic of the digital world and I often get asked about the various statistics involved. This in itself is fairly difficult, as this particular online sphere is constantly shifting, evolving and growing at an astronomical rate.
Bear in mind that these are relatively recent figures – in a few months time (or even less) a lot of it is likely to be obsolete –  but for now, I think they’re a great way of demonstrating the impact that social media is having in the digital …

China says at minimum 70 million people will visit the Shanghai World Expo this year; local government authorities are dangling whopping numbers like 100 million.
That’s an average of more than 380,400 people descending on the site on each of the expo’s 184 days, starting May 1. Around 20 million tickets have been sold, organizers say, and to underscore their confidence in demand they are sticking to plans for gradually increasing the cost of daily admission, now “benchmarked” at 160 yuan, or $23.50.
The government even suggests some visitors might prefer to …