Another example of how disruptive the Chinese OTAs are becoming is that big news breaks on Xmas Day, with Qunar announcing its biggest ever investment, taking a stake in China's offline travel agency business, Traveling Bestone (aka www.517best.com).
The scale of the investment has not been disclosed.
Traveling Bestone has more than 3,500 offline travel agencies across China, and is the largest B2B2C distributor of tour packages in the country.
Jenna Qian, Qunar Head of Communications, told Tnooz that access to Bestone's tour package inventory was one of the major reasons for the deal.
"We will operate a combined B2B platform, sharing inventory, so Bestone's tour packages will be available to our customers, and our packages will be available to Bestone customers as well.
"This will give Qunar access to more suppliers and more purchasers."
The tie-up is, at the moment, focussed on packages and does not yet include, for example, giving Bestone shops access to Qunar's hotel inventory.
The tie-up will also see the launch of a co-branded mobile app known as Zhanglvtong.
Said Qian:
This will be developed and operated by Qunar. Visitors to the offline stores will be incentivised to use this app, which will be transactional.
She added that Qunar was stepping up its efforts to drive changes in consumer behaviour by investing in this O2O - offline to online - initiative. "Most tour packages in China are sold offline, and this deal will help to bring more of this business online," she added.
Elsewhere, Qunar has quietly launched an English-language flight search site, qua.com. described as a sub-brand of Qunar.
"It is an English-language site developed by our engineers, and it very much still in the test stages. But we do want to broaden our offer to English-language speakers," said Qian