Qunar eclipses Ctrip as revenue growth surges, hotel bookings rise 85 percent

For investors in Chinese travel websites, growth in sales is trumping profits.

Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg project that sales at Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd, which they expect to lose money until 2017, will rise 71 percent this year. That is more than twice the forecast growth for Ctrip.com International Ltd, China's biggest travel site that has been profitable since at least 2003.

Investors are taking note of their differing strategies to tap China's growing leisure industry, according to Eric Chen at CIMB Securities Ltd. Ctrip's traditional travel-agency approach, where it makes commissions on bookings, is putting it behind Qunar, which allows people to view deals offered by a wide range of providers and gets paid for steering customers to them.