China's online travel service company Ctrip.com has entered into an agreement with Google. The tie-up will enable Ctrip.com to upgrade search power for hotel information in China. (5/10/2006)

According to local media, by using Google's new search engine, bendi.google.com, visitors will soon be able to find electronic maps and other related information about 3,000 tourist hotels across China.

Zou Hongyu, senior manager of Ctrip's marketing department, said the launch of the hotel information service is the first step of its planned cooperation with Google. Zou added that the company will expand the cooperation on information services in other fields such as air ticket booking and holiday destination guide.

As per the information available, Ctrip.com now boasts a hotel room booking volume of 500,000 every month, making it the largest hotel booking agent in China. It owns service information for about 5,000 hotels, of which 3,000 are accessible via an online search.

Among other developments, Ctrip.com last month launched a east minute booking service to meet the urgent demands of its users. With this new service, passengers can book their flight tickets 90 minutes ahead of the flight's departure in contrast to the three hours in the past.

Recently, Zacks Equity Research analyst Paul Cheung shared that his top?recommendation is for Ctrip.com. Although its stock price has more than doubled in the past year, I think Ctrip can grow at a rate of more than 30 percent in the next few years because this company has half the market share of the online travel market in China, and more and more people will be spending money on travel due to their increasing income.