Ctrip.com to expand overseas reservation services

Ctrip.com International Ltd, China's largest online travel service provider in terms of market share, will cooperate with Booking.com to provide an overseas hotel reservation platform for domestic consumers.

Booking.com is the world's biggest online hotel reservation agency by room nights sold.

The new platform will offer reservation services in more than 200,000 overseas hotels in 172 countries and regions, the Chinese company said on Aug 16.

The cooperation will allow Ctrip.com to update overseas hotel information from Booking.com, greatly developing its overseas resources.

Booking.com will become accessible to more potential Chinese tourists and expand its market presence in China.

Overseas tours are booming in China. But the language barrier and the lack of knowledge of foreign countries' markets makes the hotel reservation process somewhat difficult for ordinary tourists.

"The cooperation between Ctrip.com and Booking.com will solve this problem," Fan Min, CEO of Ctrip.com, told China Business News.

Fan said that the company plans to explore the overseas reservation market because not many hotel reservation agencies in China are able to get so many overseas resources.

"The price war is not the defining element. The key to victory is still the competitiveness of the services," said Fan.

Founded in 1999, the Shanghai-based company provides services including hotel reservations, flight ticketing, and packaged tours.

Booking.com is based in Amsterdam and now has reservation networks in more than 238,000 hotels.