Qantas today opened its first online flagship store on Qunar.com, one of China’s largest online travel portals.
Customers in China can now book flights to Australia and New Zealand directly with Qantas through Qunar.com and the Qunar mobile app. In time, customers will also be able to purchase excess baggage, extra legroom seats and other additional products through the flagship store.
Qantas Senior Vice President, Asia, Benjamin Tan, said the launch of the flagship store was great news for Qantas customers in China.
“With strong demand for travel between China and Australia, the flagship store offers our customers a new, seamless and convenient way to book Qantas flights in China through a familiar and popular platform,” said Mr Tan.
“The Qunar website and mobile app are easy-to-use and allow customers to complete their booking within the one platform.
“Qantas’ partnership with Qunar forms part of our growth strategy for China and the broader Asian region. We’re pleased to partner with Qunar and look forward to working together to deliver the best possible experience for our customers.”
Liu Lianchun, CEO Qunar said the customers would benefit from a more customisable booking experience when booking Qantas flights through the Qunar platform.
“Qunar is pleased to have Qantas on board with its flagship store on our site. Australia is an incredibly popular destination for Chinese travellers. Qantas provides a fantastic premium product with comfortable seats, great cabin experience, and award-winning inflight food and beverage options,” Mr Liu added.
As part of the flagship store opening, Qantas welcomes Qunar as its first trade partner in China to facilitate customer bookings using the Qantas Distribution Platform (QDP). The QDP was launched in May this year to enhance the airline retailing, booking and servicing capabilities for Qantas’ trade partners and deliver a more personalised experience for customers.
In February 2018, Chinese visitors to Australia exceeded New Zealand for the first time and became Australia’s largest source of international visitors.
According to Qunar’s data, Australia became the fifth “most loved overseas destination” in the 2018 summer travel season. As one of the largest online travel platforms in China, Qunar has over 300 million website users and its mobile app has received over 1.7 billion downloads to date. Qunar sells tickets for more than 680,000 routes operated by around 580 airlines worldwide. Over 100 airlines have also set up flagship stores on Qunar.