qunar travel agency

How Qunar’s CEO Built China’s Largest Travel Booking Site From Scratch

Qunar has cashed in big on China's travel booking boom. ( Placeit )

Amidst all the talk about a potential  $10 billion mega merger with Ctrip , you have to visit Qunar’s headquarters on Suzhou Street in the Haidian District of Beijing to fully appreciate why Qunar co-founder and CEO Chenchao “CC” Zhuang likes his competitive position and “prefers to manage the largest online travel company in China.”

Namely, Qunar, that is.

On the 17th floor, and parts of seven other floors in the building, product managers and engineers sit tightly packed in seemingly endless rows of desks, eyes intently focused on their computer screens in an atmosphere that is, at turns, serious, informal and fun.

Youngish employees clad in jeans or bright-yellow slacks, and work boots or sneakers with splotches of purple, orange or pink, saunter in and out past the reception desk while would-be employees seeking to join Qunar’s ranks of more than 2,500 fill out job applications, pens in hand, in the lobby.

CEO CC Zhuang walks into a modest conference room overlooking Suzhou Street, talks about the problems he encountered in 2005 when he sought to build a Kayak for China, and deftly dodges answering the big question of the day about a potential merger with Ctrip, but you can read plenty between the lines.

“I prefer to manage the largest online travel company in China,” Zhuang says. “There is such a long run. We will build the system matrix for Chinese online travel. There are so many exciting things for us.”

Qunar, with help from  referrals, investment, and technology-sharing from controlling stakeholder Baidu , China’s largest general search engine, has the country’s largest traffic numbers in travel by far, dwarfing Ctrip and everyone else.

When pressed about a potential marriage between Ctrip and Qunar, Zhuang has an answer. “I won’t mention about mergers. I will be CEO of China’s largest travel company, which you can explain many ways,” Zhuang says, laughing. “For sure, Qunar itself will grow to be the Chinese largest online travel company by ourself or we are not against any kind of M&A in order to speed our process.”

Qunar co-founder and CEO Chenchao "CC" Zhuang. (Dennis Schaal/Skift)

Qunar started out as a travel metasearch player, but has evolved over the last three years into  hybrid travel search and booking site  with a software as a service (SaaS) platform to bring online tens of thousands of Chinese hotels (60,000 signed on in 2013), and soon tours, activities, and restaurant providers.

Zhuang says Qunar started out with the idea of becoming a metasearch site, the Kayak of China, as he puts it, but found there was so little infrastructure—from airline and hotel databases to online booking capabilities—that Qunar had to build almost everything from scratch.

There were also few entrenched players in metasearch or property management systems, for example, and that created both challenges and opportunities, Zhuang says.

“In China, you can be the all-star player because there is a lot of infrastructure shortage,” Zhuang says. “In many cases, we don’t have a player. It’s empty. It’s not there.”

Qunar’s vision is to become the “end to end” matrix/solution for online travel in China. It already has the largest traffic, and is the greatest number of hotel reviews, including both professional and user-written critiques, Zhuang says.

Channeling Room 77 #

Among the new products that Qunar is testing is the booking of individual rooms at small hotels, and distributing hardware to the properties so Qunar would be able to gauge for its customers which specific rooms have the most sunshine and the least noise, among other metrics.

The project, which is at a very early stage, resembles the sort of individual room booking and metrics that U.S. hotel search site  Room 77  tried and largely abandoned after meeting much resistance from hotels.

“It’s very small scale for testing,” Zhuang says of the individual room booking and room-metrics hardware distribution. “But, I think that’s the future.”

Destination Services #

Jenna Qian, who heads Qunar’s corporate communications and investor relations units, says the company is also making a big push this year to expand beyond third-party partnerships and to supplement them by establishing direct relationships with destination activities companies, including tours, attractions and dining, and to make these available in Qunar’s mobile apps.

Qunar has a sales and marketing workforce of some 1,100 people, and when they go into big leisure markets to contract with hotels and provide Qunar’s SaaS solution for online hotel bookings, the company plans to extend the product to destination activities, as well, Qian says.

Qunar wants to be able to offer the broadest array of travel products, and its combination of search and booking technologies can help deliver this comprehensiveness in a market that has what she describes as “hundreds of thousands” of online travel agencies, and 50 different price points for individual hotels because of the wide number of providers.

Pricing parity for hotel rates, which is big in North America and Europe, doesn’t exist in China, Qian says.

What Kayak and TripAdvisor Have Learned from Qunar #

While Zhuang acknowledges that he initially sought to build the Kayak of China starting in 2005, he argues that Qunar’s SaaS system to bring online booking to the largely offline market was in place before Kayak started doing facilitated bookings of flights through OTAs, and that’s something that TripAdvisor is just getting around to doing for hotels in 2014.

Although there might be a counter-argument from Kayak, Zhuang argues that Qunar recognized the opportunity in mobile before just about everyone else, too.

On the mobile front, Qunar and Baidu recently co-developed voice recognition technology to assist travelers search for flights and hotels. Zhuang says it is working well for flights, but needs improvement on the hotel side of things.

Qunar  executed an IPO in November 2013 , raising $167 million, and saw its mobile revenue and total revenue jump 390 percent and 74 percent, respectively, in the fourth quarter of 2013, although the company continues to pile up losses.

That’s OK, Zhuang says, because Qunar’s investors are patient and in it for the long term.

With such a huge opportunity, Qunar is focused on the China domestic and outbound travel markets, and doesn’t plan to address inbound travel for years, Zhuang says.

When you are trying to create an end-to-end solution for China, from trip-planning and search to booking tours on mobile devices when the traveler is on the go and already in the destination, there is a ton of work to be done, and Zhuang is excited about what he describes as trying to “leapfrog” the competition.

For now, reading between the lines, Zhuang seems content to have Qunar try to do that on its own, without the help of rival Ctrip.

This article originally appeared on Skift , a Jing Daily content partner. #

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Qunar – Our English Guide to buying FLIGHT TICKETS

Kate CHERNAVINA Workshops

Living in China, the question of airfares is always going to be an important one. Qunar English Guide: When you are traveling for work or leisure will inevitably bring you to various air ticket websites and apps, promising a simple, one-click experience.

Today we are going talk about Qunar , the website that is famous for its low prices, its availability to pay with Union-Pay even for international travel, and for being one of the most convenient platforms for travel arrangements. On this platform you can buy air tickets, train tickets, book holidays, rent cars, and buy tickets for events, as well as benefit from a range of other services.

Please note, HI-COM is a translation company, and not a part of Qunar company, and do not provide any ticketing information. To contact Qunar costumer support please dial   95117 or (+8610) 82872677 for International travels

Living in China, the question of airfares is always going to be an important one. Traveling for work or leisure will inevitably bring you to various air ticket websites and apps, promising a simple, one-click experience.

Today we are going talk about Qunar, the website that is famous for its low prices, its availability to pay with Union-Pay even for international travel, and for being one of the most convenient platforms for travel arrangements. On this platform you can buy air tickets, train tickets, book holidays, rent cars, and buy tickets for events, as well as benefit from a range of other services.

When landing on the main page of the website, air tickets are presented as the first option, as air travel is the main business of Qunar.

Now at first glance you will notice that there is an option “IN ENGLISH”. However, this will just lead you to a link to download an app, which will force you to use your phone with its small interface. Plus, there won’t be any services available other than flights.

The user interface is simple and straightforward – locations on the left, dates on the right. Now the platform offers a new filter called “smartsearch”. This allows you to prioritize your travel by the number of days in a given month. For example, pick July, and then pick a 5-day trip, and the platform will then generate the best options of the month.

You may filter flights by time (departure and arrival), airlines and exclude connecting flights from the search.

In any case, when you book a ticket for a given day, you will be given an option for flights filtered by price. The price shown (in our case 934), is the price that includes taxes, but a few other hidden costs will come up after you click on “direct booking”.

Here are the options for the same flight with a different agent. Some agents might sell out their allocation of tickets faster than another, so don’t be surprised if your link doesn’t have any tickets left. Pick the one that has the best deal.

Please note, HI-COM is a translation company, and not a part of Qunar company, and do not provide any ticketing information. To contact Qunar costumer support please dial   95117

In the next level, just enter the passenger information and the contact number. The platform will automatically transfer you to your internet banking service or an Alipay account.

We hope we have now made your air travel arrangements more cost and time efficient! Stay tuned for our next guide on Qunar train tickets!

Please note, HI-COM is a translation company, and not a part of Qunar company, and do not provide any ticketing information. To contact Qunar costumer support please dial   95117 or (+8610) 82872677 for International travels!

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Qunar invests in Travelling Bestone

Qunar’s largest investment yet is in China’s largest travel agency chain, Travelling Bestone.

ChinaTravelNews – Our reporter has learned that Qunar has just invested in China’s largest travel agency chain with a national network, Travelling Bestone. This is Qunar’s largest investment yet and makes it Travelling Bestone’s second largest shareholder. The amount of investment is not disclosed.

Qunar is the largest Chinese-language online travel platform in the world. It is a major portal for online bookings with a vast supplier base encompassing 4,190 travel agents and 770,000 hotels located worldwide.

Travelling Bestone is the largest offline travel agency chain in China with over 3,500 franchised agencies. The companies complement each other in their respective fields of operations with Qunar handling online operations and Travelling Bestone handling offline channels. They have a high degree of cooperation on every level of the shared supply chains, linked user channels and marketing. They will also bolster offline to online(O2O) interaction and corporate integration to fuel the transitioning of traditional tour operation to the O2O model.

Travelling Bestone is the largest B2B2C platform in China that has amassed a wealth of experience and resources in the B2B sector. It launched a sightseeing B2B platform this year which will help extend Qunar’s B2B business and bring greater business opportunities and market improvements to suppliers.(Translation by David)

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Reaching Chinese Tourists: Online Travel Agencies and Social Media Platforms [2023]

It’s time to roll out the red carpet as Chinese tourists gear up to satisfy their wanderlust once again, with borders reopening and travel restrictions lifted. According to Dragon Trail’s Chinese Traveler Sentiment Report more than 60% of survey respondents said they wanted to travel outside of mainland China in 2023. Data shows that there has been a significant increase in flight bookings ( 254% ) and trips planned by Chinese travelers. 

Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and Thailand are currently the most popular travel destinations, while the US, UK, and Australia are the most popular long-distance travel destinations, based on Trip.com Group bookings.

Due to travel restrictions and other pandemic-related challenges, Chinese business travelers have not been able to engage in physical meetings with their international counterparts for over three years, making the desire to reconnect with the world’s major economies even more pressing.

If you’re looking to target Chinese travelers, it’s important to be aware of the apps they use for travel purposes. 

However, it’s  also important to note that Chinese tourists don’t use the same social media apps as their Western counterparts. In fact, China has its own collection of travel-related apps that are popular among visitors looking to travel both domestically and internationally.

In order to hack the Chinese traveler base, it is important to understand the apps they use and how these apps work. 

Social media platforms for Travel

Social media has become an indispensable tool for travelers in today’s digital world. OTAs, online travel agencies, are the most important platforms to plan and book trips but the inspirations and ideas are usually born elsewhere. Xiaohongshu, RED , becomes a leader when it comes to pre-planning phase with almost 40% of travelers using it to plan an outbound trip. Douyin, WeChat and Weibo also play significant role in finding inspirations to travel. 

✈️ WeChat for Travel Sector: Discover more!

📕 The Evolution of Xiaohongshu, RED, into a Travel Platform

Online travel agencies in China

Chinese travelers are highly mobile-savvy and open to using technology to enhance their travel experiences. They also value word-of-mouth recommendations when it comes to planning the trip.

Three of the most well-known online travel agencies (OTAs) in China are Qunar, Ctrip, and Fliggy. We can learn a little bit about the conduct and preferences of Chinese tourists by examining these businesses’ operations and the services they provide.

Ctrip / 携程旅行

Ctrip is the biggest OTA in China. One of Ctrip’s strengths is its mobile app, which allows users to book and manage their travel arrangements on the go. 

The app also offers a range of other features, such as real-time flight status updates and travel guides.

Chinese travelers are highly tech-savvy and prefer to book and manage their travel plans using mobile apps. They also value convenience and real-time updates.

✈️  What is Ctrip, China’s Top OTA, and How Tourism Brands Use it?

Qunar / 去哪儿

Qunar is one of the leading online travel booking platforms in China. It provides a variety of travel-related services, such as booking hotels and flights, vacation packages, and rental cars. 

One thing that sets Qunar apart from its competitors is its emphasis on user-generated content. Users of the platform can post reviews and share their travel experiences, which aids other travelers in making wise choices.

Chinese travelers are more likely to rely on the experiences and opinions of others when making travel decisions. They place a high value on word-of-mouth recommendations and user-generated content.

Fliggy / 飞猪

Fliggy is an OTA owned by Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant. It offers a range of travel-related services, including flight and hotel bookings, vacation packages, and travel guides. 

One of Fliggy’s unique features is its focus on personalized recommendations. The platform provides users with tailored travel recommendations using data analytics and artificial intelligence.

Chinese travelers are open to using technology to enhance their travel experiences. They value individualized recommendations and personalized travel advice.

Online travel agencies (OTAs) in China can offer useful information about the habits and preferences of Chinese tourists. Here are some ways in which they can help:

Understanding Chinese tourists and travel trends

Chinese online travel agencies (OTAs) can provide information on the most popular travel locations and the best times to travel. This can help us determine the times and locations where Chinese tourists are most likely to travel.

Recognizing preferences

Chinese OTAs can also offer details on the kinds of lodging, activities, and tours that Chinese tourists favor. For instance, they might favor five-star resorts, shopping excursions, or cultural encounters.

Language and cultural barriers

Chinese online travel agencies (OTAs) cater to Chinese tourists, so they can shed light on how language and cultural barriers may affect travelers’ choices. They can also offer translations and other services that facilitate and improve the travel experience for Chinese tourists.

Popular travel apps for Chinese tourists

Two well-known apps among Chinese travelers are Mafengwo and Dazhong Dianping. Let’s delve into the specifics to become familiar with these apps.

Mafengwo / 马蜂窝

Younger Chinese internet users refer to MaFengWo as the “travel bible” because it offers long-form tourism-focused content to assist users with their travel arrangements. With over 100 million users , it has developed into China’s top social media travel platform since its founding in 2006!

Mafengwo began as a community for independent travelers. Users of the platform communicate with one another by sharing their journeys, travel advice, itineraries, suggestions, and feedback.

Later in 2016, Mafengwo established itself as an online travel agency. Some of its features include:

• Travel focused user written content like tips, photos and personal comments.
• It has an e-commerce store, a one-stop-shop of travel essentials with fascinating range of travel products and services
• Hosting offline social gatherings for platform users in addition to its social forum.

Mafengwo created a new type of tourism-focused e-commerce with its customized tourism content database. It pairs travel products with pertinent data hosted on the platform rather than providing separate services to let customers take the initiative to buy. 

Within Mafengwo, travelers can arrange all of their transportation needs for the journey. That includes airfare, train and bus tickets, bus passes, and even cruises! 

Mafengwo organizes its hotel suggestions into categories like “dreamy” or “architectural”. It’s an interesting contrast to other OTA platforms that only list out hotel deals. Depending on the purpose of their trips and personal interests, customers can make reservations for their favorite establishments.

It also covers travel packages, activities, and excursions, along with helping travelers with travel documents.

Dazhong Dianping / 大众点评

Dazhong Dianping is a well-known online review and rating platform that covers a variety of businesses, including eateries, hotels, shops, and other neighborhood services. It has been called the Chinese version of Yelp.

With more than 200 million unique mobile users, it bills itself as the first independent third-party consumer review website in the entire world.

Dianping provides information services such as user information, consumer reviews and commercial offers and discounts. It also provides O2O (Online To Offline) services as it combines features of Groupon, Deliveroo, Tripadvisor, and Yelp!

Overseas location can set up their pages their, publish their menus, etc. Chinese travelers can be encouraged to leave their comments and reviews. 

Reasons To Use Dianping As A Marketing Tool

• Dianping provides comprehensive travel and lifestyle services.
• Businesses can learn how the community feels about their products and/or brands firsthand.
• Dianping, WeChat, and Douyin all serve as buzz generators for most aspects of Chinese culture.
• KOLs and KOCs level of interaction with companies and goods has a greater impact on other users.
• Dianping is a platform where consumers can interact with brands.
• Dianping’s statistics are self-evident: 15 billion visits each year. The average daily usage of the app is 13 minutes.

Businesses can learn about the preferences, viewpoints, and actions of Chinese consumers by keeping an eye on the reviews and ratings on Dazhong Dianping. For example, businesses can use Dazhong Dianping to understand which types of food and cuisines are popular in different regions of China, what factors are important to Chinese consumers when choosing a restaurant or hotel, and what types of promotions and discounts are most effective in attracting Chinese customers.

Overall, Mafengwo and Dazhong Dianping can provide valuable insights into the preferences, behaviors, and trends of Chinese audiences. This in turn can be used by businesses to develop effective marketing strategies and improve their offerings.

Integration with Alipay and WeChat

Alipay and WeChat are two of the most popular mobile payment apps in China. Only Alipay has 320 million Daily Active Users. Both apps offer a range of features, including mobile payments, money transfers, and other financial services.

In recent years, Alipay and WeChat have also been integrated with a number of travel apps in China. Thanks to that it is much easier for users to make payments and book travel-related services. For example, users can now use Alipay or WeChat to book flights, hotels, and rental cars, as well as purchase tickets for attractions and events.

One example of a travel app that has integrated with Alipay and WeChat is Ctrip. Ctrip allows users to link their Alipay or WeChat accounts to their Ctrip account, so that they can make payments directly from their mobile devices.

Other travel apps that have integrated with Alipay and WeChat include Qunar, Meituan, and Didi Chuxing, among others. These integrations have helped to streamline the travel booking process for users. At the same time, they also make it more convenient for them to make payments on-the-go.

Overall, the integration of Alipay and WeChat with travel apps in China is a testament to the growing popularity of mobile payments and digital financial services in the country. As more and more users turn to these apps for their financial needs, we can expect to see even more integrations with other types of apps in the future.

By leveraging these apps, you can reach a wider audience and increase your brand awareness among Chinese travellers.

Key Takeaway:  However, it’s important to remember that cultural differences and language barriers may still exist, so it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of the Chinese market and tailor your marketing strategy accordingly.

If you want to know more about the Chinese market, contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at [email protected].

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Holidaymakers choose short trips amid outbreak of virus

Rural homestays benefit as people stay closer to home for Qingming Festival

Local tours are the most popular option for the upcoming Qingming Festival holiday on April 3-5, as travelers have shortened the radius of their travel to reduce risk amid the pandemic, business insiders said.

Data from online travel agency Qunar show that, suburb tour reservations for this year's holiday increased by 30 percent year-on-year.

From the presale of train tickets, as of March 28, the proportion of intraprovincial passengers accounted for 75 percent of the national total, an increase of more than 20 percent compared with the same period last year.

"Since the outbreak of the pandemic, leisure travel to suburbs and rural areas are in demand among tourists," a manager of Qunar was quoted as saying by Beijing Daily.

"The increasing demand energizes accommodation in rural areas, with some having outperformed hotels in downtown areas."

Moreover, during this year's Qingming Festival, some upscale hotels and homestays in rural areas have cut their prices by about 30 percent, attracting many tourists to choose countryside travel, the manager said.

According to the tourism platform, some hotel reservations in rural areas doubled year-on-year, with the price half of that from the Spring Festival in February. Cities including Dali, Chengdu, Lijiang,Chongqing, Beijing, Guangzhou and Sanya are among the favorite destinations.

"We had to cancel our travel plans to stay in Beijing due to the outbreak across the country. I plan to take my family on a two-night trip in the suburbs and travel around," a visitor surnamed Zhao told Beijing Business Today.

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Three-day holiday bolsters China’s domestic tourism market

Tuesday, 09 Apr 2024

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Dragon boats are seen during the Taizhou Jiangyan Qintong Boat Festival at the Qinhu National Wetland Park in Taizhou, in the eastern province of Jiangsu. Traditionally held around the Qingming Festival in April, the centuries-old tradition includes theatrical performances, as well as dragon and lion dances, with folk dances taking place directly on the boats. — AFP

Beijing: The just-concluded Qingming Festival holiday proved to be a boon for the tourism industry in the country with both the number of travellers and tourism revenue soaring as people made the most of the short break.

Figures from the Culture and Tourism Ministry last Saturday showed that domestic destinations witnessed about 119 million visits during the three-day holiday, which started last Thursday, the Tomb Sweeping Day, up 11.5% compared with 2019. There was only one day off for the occasion last year, and it resulted in 23.77 million domestic visits.

The travel boom during the holiday generated revenue of about 54 billion yuan, up 12.7% compared with 2019, the ministry said.

Reports and figures from travel agencies and local government departments also paint a positive picture. Travel portal Trip.com said that over the holiday, bookings for short-distance tours to destinations within cities customers live in grew 211% year-on-year (y-o-y), and bookings to neighbouring destinations located outside the cities they live in skyrocketed 350% y-o-y.

The top attractions among users of the travel portal were places well known for flower blossoms at this time of the year. Ticket bookings for such attractions surged 391% y-o-y.

Luoyang, a city famous for peony flowers in Central China’s Henan province, Nyingchi in the Xizang autonomous region with its peach blossom-covered mountains and Nanjing with plum blossoms in the eastern province of Jiangsu, were among the popular destinations for nature lovers during the holiday.

“People have shown a strong desire to travel this holiday, and the tourism market is in continuous recovery,” said Qi Chunguang, vice-president of online travel agency Tuniu.

He said the platform saw hotel bookings grow 68% y-o-y, and the number of self-driving travellers using Tuniu’s services increased 61% y-o-y. “The results meet our expectations,” he added.

In addition to traditionally popular destinations such as Beijing and Shanghai, lesser-known places also saw huge tourist influx after local food and unique folk activities found viral online fame.

Quanzhou, a city in the southeastern province of Fujian, welcomed a huge number of travellers attracted by its traditional “head-pinned flowers”. Qunar, an online travel agency, said that hotel bookings to Quanzhou grew 3.3-fold during the holiday.

Xiao Peng, a researcher from Qunar, said that young people, who are the main drivers of tourism consumption, prefer diverse or unique travelling experiences. “An ancient street or a delicious cuisine may attract a large number of travellers to a place,” he said.

The inbound and outbound tourism market also showed good performance over the holiday.

According to the National Immigration Administration, the Chinese mainland saw about 5.19 million entries and exits, up 69.6% y-o-y.

Qi Chunguang, vice-president of Tuniu, said: “Thailand, Japan, the Maldives, Egypt and New Zealand were popular among our customers.

“Some tailored tour products to South-East Asian destinations including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were also popular, especially among young people, aged 25 to 35, as the three countries are visa-free for Chinese citizens.” — China Daily/ANN

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3-day holiday bolsters domestic tourism market.

Travel: Young people help drive tourism consumption

The just-concluded Qingming Festival holiday proved to be a boon for the tourism industry in the country with both the number of travelers and tourism revenue soaring as people made the most of the short break.

Figures from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Saturday showed that domestic destinations witnessed about 119 million visits during the three-day holiday, which started on Thursday, the Tomb Sweeping Day, up 11.5 percent compared with 2019. There was only one day off for the occasion last year, and it resulted in 23.77 million domestic visits.

The travel boom during the holiday generated revenue of about 54 billion yuan ($7.47 billion), up 12.7 percent compared with 2019, the ministry said.

Reports and figures from travel agencies and local government departments also paint a positive picture. Travel portal Trip.com Group said that over the holiday, bookings for short-distance tours to destinations within cities customers live in grew 211 percent year-on-year, and bookings to neighboring destinations located outside the cities they live in skyrocketed 350 percent year-on-year.

The top attractions among users of the travel portal were places well known for flower blossoms at this time of the year. Ticket bookings for such attractions surged 391 percent year-on-year.

Luoyang, a city famous for peony flowers in Central China's Henan province, Nyingchi in the Xizang autonomous region with its peach blossom-covered mountains and Nanjing with plum blossoms in the eastern province of Jiangsu, were among the popular destinations for nature lovers during the holiday.

"People have shown a strong desire to travel this holiday, and the tourism market is in continuous recovery," said Qi Chunguang, vice-president of online travel agency Tuniu.

He said the platform saw hotel bookings grow 68 percent year-on-year, and the number of self-driving travelers using Tuniu's services increased 61 percent year-on-year. "The results meet our expectations," he added.

In addition to traditionally popular destinations such as Beijing and Shanghai, lesser-known places also saw huge tourist influx after local food and unique folk activities found viral online fame.

Quanzhou, a city in the southeastern province of Fujian, welcomed a huge number of travelers attracted by its traditional "head-pinned flowers". Qunar, an online travel agency, said that hotel bookings to Quanzhou grew 3.3-fold during the holiday.

"I was stunned by the online short videos of girls wearing well-arranged flowers on their heads. I told my boyfriend that I must try that and take pictures," said Yan Nan, a 27-year-old from Beijing, who traveled to Quanzhou on Wednesday, a day before the holiday began, and returned on Saturday.

Yan said she went to Xunpu village, considered the birthplace of "head-pinned flowers", on Thursday afternoon, and it was crowded. "I booked the service online, which cost 40 yuan. The auntie was very nice and patient, and did the flower arrangement in about half an hour. It was a good experience and I will visit the place again in the near future but avoid the peak travel periods," she said.

Xiao Peng, a researcher from Qunar, said that young people, who are the main drivers of tourism consumption, prefer diverse or unique traveling experiences. "An ancient street or a delicious cuisine may attract a large number of travelers to a place," he said.

The inbound and outbound tourism market also showed good performance over the holiday. According to the National Immigration Administration, the Chinese mainland saw about 5.19 million entries and exits, up 69.6 percent year-on-year.

Qi Chunguang, vice-president of Tuniu, said: "Thailand, Japan, the Maldives, Egypt and New Zealand were popular among our customers. Some tailored tour products to Southeast Asian destinations including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were also popular, especially among young people, age 25 to 35, as the three countries are visa-free for Chinese citizens."

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Moscow tours, business travel to moscow, tour guide service, interpreting service

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Moscow tours, business travel to Moscow, tour guide service, interpreting service

We are here to navigate you through Moscow and beyond. We specialize in private and customer-tailored tours for individuals and groups.

Tour options include:

• Moscow tours in 1 day/2days/3days (Red Square tour, Kremlin tour, metro tour, panoramic city tour, etc);
• Moscow panoramic city tour / night Moscow by legendary retro cars ;
• Layover tours in Moscow;
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• Russian culinary classes;
• Moscow-St.Peterburg tour package. Two Russian capitals in one week;
• Moscow-St.Petersburg educational tours for students and children;
• Russian towns of the Golden Ring (Sergiev Posad, Suzdal, Vladimir); Trips out of Moscow
• Shore excursions (Moscow/St.Petersburg)
• Russian honeymoon tours, photo walks in Moscow;
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• Christmas time in Moscow;
• AK-47 shooting tour, tank T-34 ride, segway tour, fishing in Moscow region.
• Group Tours ( offers for travel agencies)

We are officially endorsed by Moscow Government to guide in most iconic tourist attractions of Russia’s capital such as Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, museums of the Moscow Kremlin, the Tretyakov Art Gallery, etc.

We love our city and are ready to share with you our in-depth knowledge of Moscow, this old but very dynamic and amazing city. We will be glad to provide context and fun in equal measure opening up your eyes to Russian history, culture and art.

We know how to make the most of your time while you are here and will be delighted to turn your stay in Moscow into a life experience.

Why book with us?

• We love what we do.
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Put-in tours

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Welcome to Russia!

We are Sergey and Simon, a Russian and a Frenchman, both  passionate about Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and classic cars. Together, we have created Put-in tours. Our goal is to help you experience Russian culture off the beaten path. Join us onboard our classic Soviet van and let’s get rolling!

In Moscow we offer you a city tour to discover most of the city in an original way as well as a night tour to admire the lights. Our pubcrawl is ideal to explore Moscow’s night-life and have fun. If you are craving to discover Russian culture, come impress your senses during our monastery diner or join our 100% Russian Banya Excursion . The latest will also bring you to Sergiyev Posad and it’s famous monastery!

For the most extreme travellers, our shooting tour will deliver your daily dose of adrenaline whereas our tank excursion will let you ride a real tank and shoot a bazooka.

We also offer help to receive your visa , safe and multilingual airport transfers , as well as organisation services for team-building events or bachelor parties .

All our excursions (but the monastery diner) happen onboard our Soviet military vans and can be covered by our  professionnal photographer or videographer.

In Saint Petersburg

We welcome you in Saint Petersburg onboard our Soviet van to discover the imperial city with our city tour and night tour .

Continue your discovery in style! The adrenaline lovers will like our shooting tour  which brings 3 Russian weapons to the tip of your trigger finger.

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At Put-in tours, we put you in our classic Soviet vans to go explore Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Russian culture off the beaten path. Discover our Moscow city guided tour, visit Moscow by night, join our banya & Sergiyev Posad excursion, visit and dine in one of Moscow's oldest monastery or even Luzhniki stadium, before you party on our famous pubcrawl! Original and atypical tours : Shoot AK47 and a bazooka after riding on a tank with our tank & bazooka excursion ! Extreme tours: Fly a fighter jet in Moscow onboard a L-29 or L-39 aircraft!

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