Online leisure travel company Tuniu's air ticketing and hotel booking businesses both grew rapidly during the first half of 2016 as travel customers are visiting the company's platform more frequently.
During the second quarter of 2016, overall transaction volume of air tickets on Tuniu's platform grew about 13 times year-over-year. During this period, Tuniu continues to expand and strengthen its partnerships in the airline industry. Leading airliners such as China Eastern Airline, Air China, Hainan Airlines and Capital Airlines have all opened their flagship stores on Tuniu's air ticketing platform.
On the hotel side, transaction volume of both domestic and international hotel booking grew rapidly. Notably, transaction volume of high-end hotels increased 22 times year-over-year and continues to serve as a driving factor for growth.
Tuniu continues to develop as an overall platform for travel-related services. Tuniu's key differentiator in air ticketing and hotel booking is primarily its focus on leisure travel related air routes and hotel products. The company's strength in leisure travel air tickets and hotel booking has increased user stickiness and strengthened the purchase rate of complementary products such as attraction tickets, local tours and car rental services.
Optimizing the customer experience is one of Tuniu's core principles. As Tuniu continues to expand its air ticketing and hotel booking, the company will strengthen its customer services in order to simplify the customer's booking experience. For our partners, Tuniu has upgraded its supplier management system and data analytics system in order to better facilitate cooperation with Tuniu.
Additionally, Tuniu has introduced an installment payment option to customers for both air tickets and hotels in order to allow the younger generation and the more price sensitive customers to travel more conveniently.
Mr. Donald Yu, Tuniu's co-founder, chairman and CEO, said, "Our capabilities in air ticketing and hotel booking allow us to fully assemble our direct procurement products using our own resources, which can potentially bring overall margin improvements."
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