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Chinese online video site operator Tudou Holdings Limited is reportedly seeking to be acquired, possibly by Chinese internet company Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), in light of its IPO prospects (meaning these are not improving).

This has been a great week for me as I run around the Southern hemisphere speaking at the ATEC and the ITOC events. Yesterday, I was the guest speaker at the Inbound Tour Operators Council of New Zealand (ITOC)'s conference. It was well attended with some 200 or so tourism sector folks, and the event produced some interesting topics from the hosting the Rugby World Cup next year to a more general presentations on the state of tourism. Interestingly, the theme's of many of the presentations supported the Asian (in particular, China) market as being the key focus of New Zealand inbound tourism.

My session gave me the opportunity to highlight the trends of digital marketing in China and showcase our social media analytics platform (SinoBuzz) for the tourism sector to monitor and understand what is being discussed online within social media sites worldwide (presentation is below).

Back in July, we saw Google spend $700 million on a purchase of travel software company ITA Software. At the time I was saying this will certainly be putting the wind up a few Chinese online travel firms such as Ctrip, eLong, Qunar.com, Kuxun.com and Daodao.com et al (predominately, those providing a travel meta-search solution). Although, ITA is focused on flight information, it certainly signaled that Google was interested in this travel space.

It is a space that should have their interest. According to PhoCusWright’s Emerging Online Travel Marketplace in China, online travel channels will drive US$13 billion in bookings in 2011.

From what is being put forward in the western press is that Google is currently experimenting with technology that will allow it to provide much richer search results, eliminating the need for consumers to trawl through multiple sources or cross-reference information from several sites. This sounds remarkably like the value proposition of our Chinese online travel companies.

So what does this mean for them? Does this mean Qunar or Kuxun.cn will no longer be relevant or is this just another Google venture that is unlikely to succeed here in China?