Ctrip likely to gain more business from stronger Qunar platform

That outlook stems from the alliance forged in August between former rivals Ctrip and Qunar, which agreed to co-operate on providing packaged tour offerings online.

A bigger Qunar platform after the stock listing is likely to drive even more business to Shanghai-based Ctrip, which is already the second-largest provider of packaged tours to Qunar's website.

A Barclays report said Ctrip might "contribute close to 15 to 20 per cent of total package tour products for Qunar".

"Based on our expectation that Ctrip's packaged tour business will benefit from the partnership with Qunar, we raise our package tour estimates for 2014 and 2015, with year-on-year growth of 35 per cent and 33 per cent respectively, from 29 per cent and 27 per cent previously," Barclays said.

"We would not be surprised if Ctrip were to explore opportunities to provide its hotel and air ticketing inventories on Qunar's platform in the future."

Founded in Beijing in 2005, Qunar offers consumers real-time searches for air and rail tickets, hotels and tour packages.