Taobao.com Enters Online Travel Market

China's largest retail website Taobao.com announced that its online travel channel Tao Lvyou has been officially put online, marking Taobao.com's entry into online travel market.

Through the integration of Taobao's quality tourism product sellers, the new channel has four service functions, which are air tickets, hotel booking, travel services, and destination information.

According to a representative of Taobao, its partners include both large tourism enterprises like China Eastern and CYTS, and hundreds of ticket agents, hotels and travel agencies.

Currently there are more than 10,000 hotels included in the travel channel, and these can be found in most large and medium-sized cities and tourist destinations. It also has one-stop tourist routes, including about 4,000 routes, tickets of more than 3,000 scenic spots all over the country and travel related services like tour guides, car rental, and visa application.

To cope with service disputes, Taobao.com has two measures: first, all the registered outlets should have the legal operational qualifications approved by the national government; second, once there is dispute, Taobao.com will compensate the consumers with up to three times the loss. Stores that can not guarantee a quality service and that get an unacceptably high number of poor comments will be closed.