What Qunar.com does

Qunar.com is a Beijing-based Chinese-language online travel metasearch platform founded in February 2005 by Douglas Khoo, Fritz Demopoulos, and CC Zhuang. The company operates a travel search engine that aggregates real-time pricing and inventory from over 4,190 online travel agencies, 770,000 hotels, 180,000 flight routes, 500,000 vacation packages, and 10,000 tourist attractions, delivering search results through qunar.com and mobile applications for iOS and Android. Reported scale includes 44.74 million monthly unique visitors (September 2014, iResearch) and approximately 460 million mobile app activations (September 2014); the app was named Best Chinese Original Travel App by Apple China in both 2011 and 2012.

Qunar serves budget-conscious Chinese leisure travelers free of charge and monetizes through a B2B model: roughly 80% of revenue from cost-per-click advertising by airlines, hotels, and OTAs bidding on search placement, with the remaining ~20% from display advertising and supplemental transaction commissions on group-buying and travel-deal bookings. B2B distribution runs through a supplier portal indexing 4,190 travel agent sites, and the company actively pursues destination-marketing partnerships with government tourism authorities — including the Hainan Provincial Department of Tourism (Southeast Asia inbound study-tour campaign, June 2026) and the Tourism Authority of Thailand ('Zhong Tai Yi Jia Qin' campaign, 2025). The platform supports a broad product surface spanning flights, hotels, vacation packages, group-buying, attractions/tickets, train and bus tickets, car rental, visa, cruise, apartments, and user-generated travel guides, with PCI DSS Level 1 payment certification.

Since May 2017, Qunar has operated as a privately held subsidiary of Trip.com Group (formerly Ctrip) following its delisting from NASDAQ at a $4.44 billion equity valuation. Baidu was majority shareholder from June 2011 (after a $306 million strategic investment) until the privatization transaction. The platform's technology stack includes AI-driven recommendation engines, fraud/anomaly detection, and automated booking workflows, with Face++ face recognition, Baidu Location Map, Huawei/Meizu Login, and multi-vendor push notification SDKs in production. Qunar faces active Chinese regulatory oversight: it was among seven platforms summoned in June 2026 by SAMR, the Cyberspace Administration, and the National Railway Administration over train-ticketing practices, and made 139 algorithm-governance compliance commitments under the nationwide CAC campaign on price transparency and user consent.

Name

Qunar.com

Legal name

北京趣拿信息技术有限公司

Website

https://www.qunar.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2005

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1,001–5,000 employees

Short description

Qunar.com is a Beijing-based Chinese travel metasearch engine founded in 2005, aggregating flights, hotels, packages, and attractions from thousands of OTAs. It operates as a Trip.com Group subsidiary, serving budget-conscious Chinese leisure travelers free of charge while monetizing via B2B advertising and supplier commissions.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Online Travel Metasearch

NAICS

Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (519290), Travel Agencies (56151)

akta.pro primary industry

General Travel Metasearch (Multi-Vertical) (THALAEAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Flights Metasearch & Airfare Comparison (THALAEAB), Hotels & Lodging Metasearch (THALAEAC), B2B Metasearch & White-Label Comparison Widgets (THALAEAK)

Keywords

• Travel search engine
• Hotel booking
• Flight booking
• Vacation packages
• Group buying deals

Headquarters

HQ city

Beijing

HQ country

China

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Personnel, Operations

Revenue model

1. Cost-per-Click Advertising: 80% of revenue derived from travel search engine advertising where suppliers and OTAs pay per click for placement in search results.
2. Display Advertising: 20% of revenue from display advertising on the platform, including banner ads and promotional placements.
3. Transaction Commissions on Travel Deals: Commission revenue from travel deal bookings processed through the platform.
4. Tourism Promotion and Voucher Programs: Partnership-based promotional campaigns (e.g., Hainan Free Trade Port study-tour campaign) generating booking volume and potentially marketing fees from government tourism departments.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Qunar.com operates a Chinese-language online travel metasearch engine that aggregates flight, hotel, vacation package, and group-buying inventory from over 4,190 online travel agencies and suppliers, enabling consumers to compare real-time prices across 770,000 hotels, 180,000 flight routes, 500,000 vacation routes, and 10,000 tourist attractions. The platform is free to consumers, with bookings redirected to partner OTA and supplier sites, and revenue generated primarily through supplier cost-per-click and display advertising. Complementary offerings include travel guides, train and bus tickets, car rental, visas, cruise, apartments, and local services accessible via web and mobile apps.

Product overview

Qunar.com operates as a comprehensive online travel agency (OTA) platform offering a metasearch engine and booking services for flights, hotels, vacation packages, group-buying deals, attractions, train and bus tickets, car rentals, and travel guides. The core product is the travel search engine that aggregates information from over 4,190 travel agencies, 770,000 hotels, and 180,000 flight routes. The platform operates through web and mobile applications (iOS, Android) providing real-time search, price comparison, and booking capabilities. Supporting services include visa processing, cruise booking, local guide services, and apartment rentals. The company also maintains a public welfare initiative called Star Camel focused on poverty alleviation through tourism development.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• 星骆驼公益: Qunar's public welfare program focusing on poverty alleviation through tourism in China's central and western regions, launched since 2014 under the company party committee

Products and services

• Qunar Travel Search Engine China's first online travel metasearch engine aggregating and comparing real-time flight, hotel and travel package prices from more than 4,190 online travel agencies and suppliers for Chinese consumers.
• Flight Search and Booking Real-time flight search and booking service covering over 4,190 travel agency websites and 180,000 flight routes, with comparison across airlines and OTAs for Chinese travelers.
• Hotel Search and Booking Hotel search and reservation service covering approximately 770,000 hotels worldwide with real-time price comparison and online booking for Chinese travelers.
• Vacation Packages Vacation package search and booking including outbound travel, domestic travel, self-guided tours, cruise travel, and custom group tours aggregating packages from OTAs and tour operators.
• Group Buying (Tuan) Daily group-buying deals for travel products including hotels, attractions, and travel services offering approximately 242,000 daily deals through discounted bundling.
• Attractions and Tickets Attraction tickets and local experience bookings covering approximately 10,000 tourist attractions across China and overseas.
• Train Tickets Train ticket search and booking service for domestic and cross-border rail travel with comparison across rail operators.
• Bus Tickets Bus ticket search and booking service for inter-city bus travel.
• Car Rental Car rental and ride services including domestic and international car rental, shuttle services, and self-drive options aggregating partners in China and abroad.
• Local Services Local guide services, overseas WiFi rentals, tour guide bookings, and local experience bookings across destinations.
• Apartments Apartment and alternative accommodation booking services including vacation apartments and short-stay rentals.
• Visa Services Visa application and processing services for international travel, integrated with Qunar's vacation and outbound tour product lines.
• Cruise Cruise travel booking and itinerary search services aggregated from cruise operators and travel agencies.
• Qunar Mobile App Mobile application for iOS, iPad, Android and Symbian providing travel search and booking on mobile; named best Chinese original travel app of 2012 by Apple China with approximately 460 million activated users by September 2014.
• Travel Guides User-generated travel guides, destination information, travel journals, and trip planning tools allowing travelers to share and discover travel experiences on travel.qunar.com.

Quantifiable outcome

• 42% traffic share among Chinese travel websites in November 2011 (Experian Hitwise)
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration18 records

AI capability5 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Hainan Provincial Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and SportscoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 16 June 2026Qunar partnered with the Hainan Provincial Department to launch the 'Jom! Hainan, Let's Explore Together' Southeast Asia inbound study-tour promotion campaign, featuring a trilingual web page in Chinese, English, and Malay, leveraging Hainan's Free Trade Port policies and attractions including space science sites, tropical rainforests, and marine ecology. Follow-up activities include youth ambassador programs across Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore, influencer-driven content, and exclusive travel vouchers.
• Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2025Thailand's Tourism Authority launched the 'Zhong Tai Yi Jia Qin' campaign targeting Chinese tourists through partnerships with Qunar.com, Fliggy, and Klook, offering bundled travel packages via Thai Airways and King Power.
• China Tourism AcademyminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 May 2011Qunar established strategic partnership with China Tourism Academy in May 2011 for industry research and development collaboration.

Scale indicators11 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Fliggy (Alibaba Travel): Fliggy is Alibaba's travel platform integrated into the Alipay ecosystem. It competes with Qunar across flights, hotels, vacation packages, and attractions — frequently partnering with Tourism Authority of Thailand alongside Qunar — and leverages Alibaba's superior traffic, payments, and merchant data infrastructure.
• Tongcheng Travel (Tongcheng-Elong): Tongcheng Travel is one of China's leading OTAs, formed from the merger of Tongcheng and Elong. It competes directly with Qunar in flight, hotel, and package metasearch/booking for Chinese consumers, particularly in lower-tier cities where Qunar has been expanding aggressively.
• Kayak: Kayak (owned by Booking Holdings) is a pure-play travel metasearch engine comparing flights, hotels, cars, and packages globally. It is the closest Western functional analog to Qunar's core search engine and operates a similar CPC advertising model monetizing supplier and OTA referrals.
• Mafengwo: Mafengwo is a leading Chinese travel content/community platform that has expanded into travel booking. It directly competes with Qunar's user-generated travel guides (travel.qunar.com) and competes for travel discovery traffic, particularly among younger Chinese travelers.
• Skyscanner: Skyscanner is the global category leader in travel metasearch, owned by Trip.com Group. It serves as Qunar's international analog in product/UX (free-to-user flight, hotel, car rental comparison), and represents the technology playbook Qunar pioneered in China — making it the most relevant pure-play benchmark for Qunar's metasearch economics.

Broad incumbents

• Booking.com: Booking.com is the global leader in hotel accommodation booking, with growing metasearch and CPC advertising capabilities. While primarily OTA rather than metasearch, it represents the dominant global supplier of hotel inventory — the same suppliers Qunar monetizes through its 770,000-hotel index.
• Trip.com Group (Ctrip): Trip.com Group is Qunar's parent company and the dominant Chinese OTA. While Ctrip is a transaction-based OTA rather than pure metasearch, it overlaps directly in flights, hotels, packages, and attractions — and operates the same business model of intermediating Chinese consumer travel bookings with suppliers and B2B advertising.
• Tripadvisor: Tripadvisor is a global travel metasearch and review platform with significant user-generated content. It overlaps with Qunar's metasearch and travel guide/community products, and represents the global benchmark for travel content + CPC monetization at scale.

Emerging players

• Meituan: Meituan is China's largest local services super-app, with rapidly growing travel offerings in hotels, attractions, and package tours. Its installed base, integrated payment (Meituan Pay), and aggressive pricing threaten Qunar's CPC-based travel advertising model — particularly in domestic hotels and attractions where Meituan has scale advantages.
• Klook: Klook is Asia's leading activities and attractions booking platform. It competes with Qunar's attractions tickets and local experiences products, and frequently partners alongside Qunar (e.g., Thailand TAT campaign) — making it both a competitor and a co-marketing partner in the Asia travel ecosystem.

Market position

Competitive moat5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/qunar

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds8 records

Investors8 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments4 records

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Qunar.com