China's tourism integrity union established

Industry representatives attend the inaugural ceremony of China's tourism integrity services union on July 24, Beijing. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

China's integrity services union for the tourism industry was formally established on July 24 in Beijing. More than 10 enterprises within the tourism industry attended the inaugural ceremony and delivered a joint declaration.

According to the declaration, the organization is built based on the self-discipline of industry. It aims at upholding integrity and standardizing the market order to ensure the healthy development of China's tourism industry.

Dai Zheng, vice president of Qunar, an online provider of travel bookings and one of the main organizers of the event, said that Qunar has always had two questions in mind during its development process: How to offer high quality tourism products and services of integrity to help customers travel smartly, and how to provide infrastructure services to travel-service providers and help them offer efficient and standardized services to consumers.

China's online booking websites are faced with cutthroat competition as they try to grab a larger market share as summer vacation draws near, previously reported by China Daily.

Qunar will spend $30 million to build a travel-service platform in its latest attempt to win an ongoing price war among the nation's top online booking websites, said Dai in his speech during the ceremony.

Ctrip, another online travel agency, claimed to have invested $500 million to wave a year-long promotion campaign, as previously reported by International Financial News. However, such details were not confirmed in the firm's second quarter financial results reports released on July 24.

With an increase of nearly 34 percent year on year, China's OTA saw annual sales of 9.05 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) in 2011, according to Shanghai-based iResearch Consulting Group.