In 2006, China's Tourism industry keeps a rapid development, no matter in inbound travel, domestic travel or outbound travel.
Taking inbound travel for example, in Jan-Sep 2006, the number of inbound tourists reached 104 million, up by 3.4% over the same period of 2005; the number of inbound tourists stating overnight amounted to 41.42 million, up by 5.97% over the same period of 2005.
The foreign exchange revenue from tourism also achieved to USD 26.12 billion, up by 6.32% over the same period of last year.
However, some problems exist in China's tourism industry, for instance, the concept is outdated, management lags behind, scale is small, risk-resisting ability is not so strong and notable brands are in short.
In recent years, online reservation and online booking gradually become popular in China.
Compared to traditional modes, online tourism is so convenient that the consumers have broader choices.Although tourism website has a short history, it has attracted more and more network companies and tourism companies.
And now the traditional tourism companies, airline companies and network companies have shared the tourism market together.
China's online tourism market has huge potentials.
Its scale was RMB 1.25 billion in 2005, accounting for 0.24% of China's tourism market scale.
It reached RMB 1.91 billion in 2006 and is expected to exceed RMB 13 billion by 2010, and then sharing over 1% of the tourism market.China's tourism websites make profits by advertisement revenue and commission for transaction.
But now only few tourism websites create income from advertisement.
Commission, as the major income of online tourism transaction, depends on tourist flow.
Besides, online reservation, tourism organizing and souvenirs also generate few incomes.
.As for tourism websites, the challenges are mainly from that they are unable to find a way for entry because of not understanding the tourism industry comprehensively and profoundly while making plans.
A large number of China's tourism websites are similar, which leads to lower economic benefits.
What's more, some comprehensive websites are not so professional that it can't provide with diversified and authoritative tourism information with valuable reference.
Some information websites only serve as professional portal and lack a powerful support of professional industrial resources.
Their visiting volume is unsatisfactory.
According to survey, netizen prefer to choose those websites who have higher awareness, bulk information, clear channels and easy for search.In the face of huge potentials of the tourism market, tourism and recreation websites should take active measures such as changing marketing concept, improving service quality, strengthening the security of transactions.
As there are tremendous tourism websites, the M & A will be the trend.