eLong (LONG) Short Interest

eLong Inc was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands on April 4, 2001. The Company is in the business of mobile and online hotel reservations in China, offering consumers a hotel network of domestic and international properties. It enable travelers to make informed hotel and air ticket booking decisions through its website and mobile applications and easy to use tools such as destination guides, photos, virtual tours, maps and user reviews. Its largest shareholders are Expedia and Tencent. Its revenues are mainly derived from hotel reservations, and to a lesser extent from air ticketing. The Company offers 24-hour hotel booking, and various options with a variety of booking models, price points and payment choices for its customers, including budget, three-, four- and five-star hotels, short-stay apartments, and groupbuy hotels. The Company acts mainly as an agent in its hotel transactions. It makes room reservations based on customer inquiries and, upon the completion of a customer's stay, it calculate its commissions, which are generally a percentage of the nightly hotel room rate or a fixed amount per room night, which the hotels pay to it on a monthly basis. It also confirms with the hotel the length of the customer's stay. It also provides 24-hour air ticketing services through its toll-free customer service center, mobile applications and websites. It acts as an agent for all main airlines in China as well as international airlines that operate flights originating in China. It makes flight reservations through TravelSky GDS, which is the operator of the nationwide system for air ticket reservations in China, and issue air tickets using its branch offices and local agents. The Company markets its services through a combination of online marketing, media advertising, co-marketing with established brands of other companies and direct marketing. It competes with other online travel agencies such as Ctrip, as well as groupbuy companies which provide online hotel booking such as Meituan and travel search companies which provide online hotel booking such as Qunar. The air ticketing business is subject to the supervision of the CAAC and its regional branches. The travel agency industry is subject to the supervision of the CNTA and local tourism administrations.