With reductions in the cost of processing power, new algorithms for database searches and the advent of the World Wide Web, competitors to the established global distribution system (GDS) companies emerged. By 2002, traditional GDS operators competed with each other as well as with airline websites, some Web-based travel agencies and a new entrant called Orbitz, an online travel agency owned by a group of airlines. In 1996, less than one percent of airline tickets were sold online. By 2001, 20 percent of airline flights in the United States were booked online, and the percentage was expected to grow to 25 percent by 2004. Seemingly overnight, forty years of comparative stasis in the business models governing airline reservation and ticket distribution turned into a dogfight as airlines, brick and mortar travel agents, online travel agents and GDS operators clashed over the approximately $180 billion market for airline travel. With ticket distribution costs comprising the third largest expense at some airlines, the battle promised to be fierce.

The rapidly growing tourism sector in China has provided a good market environment for tourism enterprises, including travel agencies. In the five years through 2012, revenue for the Travel Agencies industry in China has increased at an annualized rate of 11.3% to $47.5 billion. With increasing demand for diversified tourism products such as luxury and high quality products, travel agencies have been developing new tourism products in order to meet the needs of the consumers.
Revenue from the top four firms in the Travel Agencies industry in China – CITS Group Corporation, China CYTS Tours Holding, China Comfort Travel Group, and China Travel Service Head Office – accounted for less than 10.0% of total industry revenue in 2012. The industry has a low level of concentration with revenue spread across a large number of