While some industry folk in the western hemisphere gasp at levels of money being thrown into the likes of Wimduand Airbnb, over in China there are even bigger sums in play.
Baidu, the market leading search engine in China, has invested $306 million in local travel metasearch website Qunar, giving it a majority ownership of the six year old company.
The influx of capital is actually one of the largest investments in the online travel industry over the past few years. An equivalent deal in the west would be a Google or Bing investing in a Kayak or similar-sized travel search engine.
As a result of investment, Qunar CEO Fritz Demopoulos is stepping down from day-to-day running of the business, but will remain as an advisor to the business.
Qunar say it intends to spend the capital on improving its hotel search and mobile services as well as acquisitions.
Travel search and booking services are clearly a hot area in China, with general consumer search engines like Baidu eyeing the growing market for domestic and outbound travel but also western players such as Expedia seeking to expand their existing position in the China.
Expedia upped its stake in online travel agency eLong in May 2011, paying $41.2 million to increase its shareholding to 56%.