China heating up

Couple of news stories converging to show that the online travel market in China is heating up

1. Despite three months of declining stock prices, Ctrip is back in the news with a new overseas hotel platform and some good commentary from analysts;

2. Expedia has closed a WWTE distribution deal with Air China and promoted AsiaPac President Barney Harford from board member to Chairman of majority owned and market number two eLong;

3. Travelport and CYTS joint venture Aoyou brought on a local manager - Xiaodong Guo - with the promotion of Dan Wacksman to more senior regional roles within Travelport's GTA division. Aoyou is a long way behind the other two but the market should be big enough; and

4. New entrant Qunar.com (who I only heard of recently) growing with a travel meta search model including doing a deal with Hilton.

Who said China was going off the boil....