Tuniu a winning package

The giants of China's online travel agencies, eLong and Ctrip, have a new challenger in the battle to profit from the country's fast-growing travel business. Tuniu, founded in late 2006, has found a winning niche by already becoming the leading online package and group tour company in China.

Tuniu tripled gross revenue last year and forecasts a further doubling of sales this year, according to chief executive (Donald) Yu Dunde told Asia Times Online. The Nanjing-based company, whose chief operating officer Yan Haifeng is a co-founder, took in revenues of 1.2 billion yuan (US$188 million) in 2011, providing packaged tours, group travel, do-it-yourself tours, and combined air ticket and hotel booking packages. The company covers Chinese domestic and international travel.

"Compared with others in the industry, we concentrate on package and group tours. Some competitors offer package tours, but the bigger ones mostly focus on booking hotels and air tickets. Meanwhile, eLong does not offer package tours at all, instead focusing on hotels and airfares," said Yu, who previously worked for a blogging site then a parenting site.