The Qunar/Baidu/Ctrip share swap has grabbed the headlines in China, but Priceline Inc also deserves a mention for finding an innovative way to bring booking.com into the mix.
A partnership with China Mobile - China's biggest mobile phone network with more than 800 million users - means anyone reserving a room from a dedicated booking.com page on China Mobile's web site gets at least 1GB-worth of free data.
It also applies to bookings made via the China Mobile app He Sheng Huo.
And for subscribers to China Mobile's Shanghai Mobile brand, the reward is 2GB per booking.
The amount of free data will increase in proportion to the number of bookings a user makes.
Booking.com modestly claims this is "the world’s biggest cross-industry marketing campaign in history."
APAC managing director Oliver Hua hinted that booking.com was interested in "more local cross-industry cooperation."
Related reading:
Baidu dripfeeds hints of Qunar and Ctrip future – is Uber lurking?
Ctrip and Qunar agree share swap and co-operation