After finalising its partnership deal with Ctrip, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCCL) has entered an exclusive cooperation agreement with another Chinese online distributor, JD.com. Alan Lam reports.
Meanwhile JD.com or Jingdong (京东商城), a NASDAQ-listed, Beijing-headquartered Chinese electronic commercial company, one of the largest B2C online retailers in China, has also signed a cooperation agreement with the NASDAQ-listed Tuniu Corp. (tuniu.com), a Chinese online travel agency, a rival of Ctrip, to jointly develop cruise business.
JD.com launched its cruise travel service, Jingdong Cruise, in June 2014.
While the deal with Ctrip is to operate Celebrity Century, RCCL’s agreement with JD.com has been based on operating another Celebrity Cruises ship, Celebrity Millennium, which will be undertaking four cruises from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea in the coming season. The marketing operation has already started in earnest.
This latest development is another suggestion that China’s cruise sales network is maturing and expanding fast. It may soon be a world leader, if not already, in online cruise product distribution. RCCL may be in the enviable position to reap the benefit. The group is certainly ahead of its peers in penetrating the Chinese market.
China is already a world leader in online retail sales.
