China's First-ever Leisure Travel Index Comprising 287 Cities to Launch in the Fall of 2010

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BEIJING, June 29 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- It was announced today that the first-ever City Leisure Index comprising China's top 287 destinations will be published in the fall of 2010. This project is a joint venture initiated by the China Tourism Leisure Association, a non-profit organization administered by the National Tourism Administration of the PRC; Qunar.com, China's largest online travel website; and the People's Daily Online, one of China's leading state-owned media companies. The City Leisure Index will help Chinese consumers make better and more informed decisions as they aspire to travel to new and exciting locations.

The City Leisure Index ranks 287 cities and tourist destinations according to a range of criteria including the quality of points of interest and tourist facilities, breadth of shopping and entertainment options, depth of history and culture, local government support for leisure and tourism, and numerous other criteria. These factors collectively are extremely valuable for travelers as they make decisions where to travel to next.

The creation of the City Leisure Index is a necessary and complicated enterprise. The organizers of the Index will be utilizing an array of consumer-relevant resources, including expert panels, search queries from internet consumers, user-generated online comments, on site surveys of "typical travelers", and data & information provided by regional and local governments.

Wei Xiaoan, Secretary-general of the China Tourism Leisure Association and Director of the Academic Committee of the China Tourism Academy, said, "CTLA's tent pole strategy is to promote the sustainable development of China's leisure travel industry. As a result of China's rapid economic growth, leisure travel amongst consumers is becoming much more prominent. We hope that the Index will provide up-to-date, sufficient and high quality travel information to help Chinese travelers make better decisions."

"Today, China's tourism industry is in the process of transiting from primarily a business travel market to a leisure travel market," said Fritz Demopoulos, CEO and Co-founder of Qunar.com, "Online travel agencies, traditional travel agencies, airlines and hotels provide increasingly diversified products and services. Qunar.com makes it possible for travelers to search for a wealth of air tickets, hotels, vacation packages and services. We're quite pleased to help create this Index and provide value to the emerging leisure travel category." According to data released by Google Double Click Ad Planner in April 2010, Qunar.com was ranked as China's largest travel website and No 7 globally.

In China, business travel still constitutes the bulk of the tourism industry, but leisure travel is growing very rapidly. Based on Tourism Green Paper 2010, a study released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in June 2010, the Chinese leisure travel industry has bucked the downward trend during the financial crisis. The turnover of the industry reached 1.7 trillion RMB in 2009.

Leisure travelers from cities across China are much more enthusiastic about searching and booking air tickets, hotels and packages online than business travelers. According to reports from AC Nielsen and Synovate, 10% of Chinese business travelers searched and booked online in 2009, while 50% of leisure travelers used online services. In addition to these statistics, the number of leisure travelers is expected to grow rapidly.

About China Tourism Leisure Association

China Tourism Leisure Association (CTLA) is a branch of China Tourism Association. CTLA is approved and administered by the National Tourism Administration of the PRC and is registered at the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the PRC. It is a non-profit tourism organization dedicated to promoting sustainable growth of China's leisure travel industry by nurturing healthy leisure culture, improving quality of travel services, boosting communications in the industry, compiling and actualizing criterions and expanding leisure travel consumption under the principles of equality and reciprocity and in conformity with national constitution, codes and policies.

About Qunar.com

Qunar.com is China's largest travel web site that focuses on providing the most comprehensive and accurate information for travel services. Launched in May 2005, Qunar has quickly been recognized as one of the "established stars" in the Chinese online travel space. The company generates 35 million UV's per month. Qunar searches over 600 Chinese online travel web sites covering more than 40,000 hotels and 4,000 domestic and international flights. Qunar means "where are you going?" in Mandarin Chinese. For more information, please visit http://www.qunar.com .

SOURCE Qunar.com