Chinese E-commerce Giant JD Launches Travel Channel, Targeting at Mid and High-end Market

The newly-listed Chinese e-commerce giant JD launched yesterday a travel channel named “JD Travel” under the theme of “Quality Travel”. The platform is going after mid- and high-end customers, offering a series of services like ticket reservation, hotel, visa application, tourist attraction tickets, car rental, package tours, etc.

The tourist packages on the platform are created in partnership with various travel agencies. JD will offer these partners various supports in terms of marketing and big data, the company noted. On the marketing level, JD will combine the online travel services with the sales of products closely related to travelling, like outdoor and sports kits, cameras, etc. Tourist who bought tourist services on JD Travel will get coupons for purchasing traveling kits on the platform. JD will also leverage its huge user base to provide supports in user identification, user classification and user demand prediction.

As a new entrant of online travel industry, JD Travel will not get involved in price war, but to focus on providing quality travel services, said Li Chao, vice president of the company.

After launching flight ticket reservation platform in 2011, JD gradually rolled out various services related to travel, like hotel reservation, car rental, visa, etc. JD has acquired hotel reservation platform Hotelvp.com at the beginning of this year.

Although this market is still dominated by few leading companies like Ctrip and Elong, lots of online tourism startups surfaced (click here for a wrap-up story) and several Internet companies also set eyes on the lucrative market. Tencent joins a $82 million round of funding in online travel service 17u. Etao, the shopping search service under Alibaba Group, launched a hotel search service last year.

image credit: JD Travel