Renren, the NYSE-listed Chinese social networking service launched its travelogue effort Fengche.com (means windmill in Chinese) to fire up the already intensive competition in China’s online travel market.
screenshot of fengche.com
Fengche.com, with a weird tagline (at least to me) of “United Your Travels” is aiming to become a platform where people can better “partake in their trips”, “enjoy the joyfulness of travels”. It’s website says that the new effort by Renren is trying to help people “plan and organize their trips”.
Liu Jian, COO and VP of Renren commented that “Fengche.com which is one of our major efforts to diversify our social networking services’ based revenue sources will turn into a whole new platform on which people could create and share their travels. The service is specializing in sharing personal travel experiences as well as leveraging on the rooted interactive nature of Web 2.0. With Renren’s huge use base, it will have a strong impact on China’s online travel market.”
Renren once made a fortune by selling stakes the company hold in elong.com the Chinese travel booking service to Expedia. It looks like the company tasted the treat in the market and now want more.
Travelogues built on user-generated contents are growing at fast pace with players like tukeq.com (a Innovation Works portfolio company), mafengwo.cn, 17u.com, yododo.com and zizaike.com, and more entrepreneurs set their eyes on this forefront as well.
And there’s little differentiation among these service, you could create a journey and share pictures on Fengche.com, with Mafengwo, yododo or tukeq, you can do the same thing as well. What’s more, you can download city-specific tour guides compiled by websites users from Mafengwo or yododo, an interesting feature lacking from fengche for the time being.
It’s worth noting that zizaike takes a very smart approach to providing users with customized travelogues. Basically, you need only input your destination, duration, and preferences for accommodation, food and transportation then the site will automatically generate a tour guide that only suits you.
customizing your personal travelogue with zizaike
Why so many dirty chink story here? It’s none sense at all.
Cuz it’s a blog focusing on China market, and stop using the word ‘chink’ here or anywhere!