EgoChina.com, a mainland-based travel portal controlled by SAR-listed Righteous Holdings and United States-based venture-capital firm EM Warburg Pincus, will offer mainlanders on-line air-ticketing and hotel reservations by July.
Chief operating officer Collins Qian said site users could save as much as 20 per cent on hotel bookings, compared with traditional travel agencies.
However, such discounts were unlikely for plane tickets because of government controls over prices, he said.
Chief executive Jay Zhao Jiangong claimed the site was the first mainland e-commerce-enabled travel portal.
'Although now almost all popular Webs provide travel-related content, they are basically limited to information provision,' he said.
However, analysts pointed out that some sites such as Gochinago.com and Ctrip .com had already provided travel-related e-commerce services.
Meanwhile, Mr Zhao said EgoChina.com had partnered China Construction Bank to support settlement of such on-line transactions.