Ctrip Removes Hotel Products from Qunar
Sina Tech, 9/09/14
Chinese online travel service provider Ctrip (Nasdaq: CTRP) has removed its hotel products from online travel site Qunar (Nasdaq: QUNR), a subsidiary of internet company Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). Ctrip has stated that the decision to remove its travel products from Qunar was made because Ctrip believes that the site has largely abandoned its original model as a neutral online travel products search platform.
As described by Ctrip, Qunar has cooperated with several travel agencies to give preferential placement of hotel listings at the top of the Qunar site to said agencies. The customer service hotline provided by many of these top listings is in fact Qunar's own customer service hotline, implying that Qunar is now giving priority placement to its own listings and is no longer acting as a neutral listings platform.
Ctrip believes that Qunar's decision to merge its total solutions (TTS) system, through which users directly complete transactions from third-party providers on the Qunar site, with its own online travel agency (OTA) business, constitutes unfair competition, spurring Ctrip's decision to remove its travel products.
Editor's Note: For more information on this topic, please see "Update: Ctrip Lists Hotels and Flights on Qunar," MD 9/22/13 issue.
Keywords: Internet Ctrip online travel Qunar Baidu BIDU CTRP OTA QUNR
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