Anticipating more travelers will use the Internet to book tickets and hotels, Guangdong China Travel Service (Holdings) Ltd (GDCTS) said yesterday it will list its joint venture online travel service on the NASDAQ next year.

GDCTS, the province's leading tour agency, teamed up with Hong Kong-listed Wing On Travel Holding Ltd in a 50-50 joint venture to launch online travel service Travoo China Limited on Wednesday.

Travoo received 50 million yuan (US$6 million) investment from both parent companies.Travoo China is expected to be listed on the NASDAQ within 18 months.

Many mainland and Hong Kong travel agencies are trying to grab a slice of the mainland's rising online travel market, GDCTS said.

Inspired by last year's strong performances of Ctrip and eLong, two NASDAQ-listed Chinese online travel service providers, GDCTS and Wing On decided to follow suit.

Xu Yongsheng, director of GDCTS and chairman of Travoo China, said the new website should help customers benefit from access to hotels, car rentals and vacation packages.

Chinese people's increasing interest in travel is the major driving force behind online travel service companies' growth, which also provides a welcome boost to their profits, Xu said.

The market is still small and there are many minor players, but in the long run, more people will choose to purchase tickets and hotel rooms online, he added. "The online market is full of potential."

Statistics show the travel market in the Chinese mainland earned 560 million yuan (US$69 billion) in 2004, with only 5 billion yuan (US$617 million) generated from online travel service providers.

Even though there are more than 1,000 online travel service providers operating business in the mainland, few of them take a large market share, according Xu.

Facing mounting pressure from online rivals, traditional travel companies have no other option but to create or strengthen their Internet-based services, experts said.

(China Daily January 27, 2006)