After the recent announcement of a RMB100 million investment to promote its cruise business, Tongcheng, a Chinese travel service giant, has entered strategic cooperation agreements with Costa Crociere and Royal Caribbean Cruises to jointly develop cruise business in China. Alan Lam reports.

Founded in 2004, Tongcheng Network Technology Share Co., Ltd. (同程网络科技股份有限公司), the Suzhou-based company - with the main business focuses on hotel booking, air ticketing, car rental and cruise booking - has been in expansion and partnership mode in recent years.

In the last few days, the company has signed separate cooperation agreements with Costa Crociere and Royal Caribbean Cruises to explore the possibilities of promoting cruise itineraries from China to other Asian destinations. The agreements have special emphasis aiming at ships homeporting in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tianjin.

These partnerships signal the increasing attention from the Chinese travel service sector to cruise tourism. Tongcheng’s specialism in air ticketing and hotel booking will no doubt be beneficiary to developing fly-cruise business in China.

The company has also a similar arrangement with SkySea Cruises, a joint venture between Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Ctrip International.

In 2014 Ctrip became the second biggest shareholder of Tongcheng.