Dear Dragon Trail clients, partners, and friends:

We would like to give you an update on the latest development at Dragon Trail. As you know our mission as a company is to help travel organizations from tourist boards, hotels, and cruise lines reach and connect with affluent Chinese consumers, or what we now call “The New Chinese Tourists.” In less than two years of operation since we started Dragon Trail, we have established ourselves as a leading travel technology and digital marketing company in China, focusing exclusively on China, Travel, and Digital.

We owe a big thank you to you for our success so far. We could not have gone this far without your confidence in us and your strong support to our team. We want to take this opportunity to thank you and re-assure you that we will continue to deliver targeted brand awareness, permission-based consumer data, and ultimately sales and referrals to you and your distribution partners in China.

In order to increase our service delivery capabilities and ensure the highest quality of service to you, we have been working hard in expanding the client services and technology development teams. Today, we are pleased to share with you some of the progress we have made:

We have expanded our senior management team with a veteran of the Chinese travel industry for the newly created role of Vice President of Operations. Mr. Stephen Liu joins us from Australia where he currently lives with his family. Prior to joining Dragon Trail, Stephen has served as a Vice President at the venture-backed China hotel distribution technology provider DerbySoft. He also has more than 15 years of experience in hotel operations, with Walmart China, with Hong Kong based Travel Solutions and other leading Chinese corporations. Stephen will be based in our Beijing office. His official job mandate is to oversee all aspects of Client Services and Operations.

As some of you know, earlier this year, another Chinese travel industry veteran joined Dragon Trail as GM of our Shanghai office, heading up China travel trade relations and managing a growing team in Shanghai. Mr. Chen Qing came to Dragon Trail from China General Manager appointments for various international travel organizations. Having been educated and living in Germany for more than 10 years, Mr. Chen has spent the past 10 years successfully building China operations for online travel agencies HRS and HotelZon, as well as a leading German travel insurance company. Previously he served as a Vice President for travel technology solutions provider 4Oceans, which had a successful exit to Blackstone/Travelport. In his short tenure with Dragon Trail, Mr. Chen has been able to forge some important partnerships with key Chinese travel agents and tour operators, which will benefit our clients when it comes to executing China sales and marketing programs.

A third person to join our team is Miss Tracy Ye, as head of our client services and content teams. Miss Ye joins us from Marriott International in China, with a deep background in marketing communications and public relations. We are also happy to report that we have increased our client services team by 300% to provide better services to our clients and partners. Also with the client services team, we want to express our sincere appreciation for the hard work that Ms. Lynn Li has provided to Dragon Trail, and wish her all the best with her new job with Sweden Tourism in their new office in Beijing. Lynn remains a close friend of the Dragon Trail family.

The following are the email addresses of the new members of the Dragon Trail senior team:

Tracy Ye, tracy.ye@dragontrail.com
Stephen Liu, stephen.liu@dragontrail.com
Qing Chen, qing.chen@dragontrail.com

Please feel free to contact them directly for service requests. Jens and I will continue to be available and personally involved in working with you.

Finally, we are excited to announce that in addition to our offices in Beijing and Shanghai, we have just opened a technology R&D Center in Xi’an. This strategic move will dramatically increase our technology development capabilities and enable us to deliver technology based solution with quicker turn-around and richer feature set without increasing delivery cost. The R&D center also allows us to make some strategic investments into cutting edge travel technologies and consumer facing travel applications to further help our clients exceed their marketing and distribution goals in China.

In just a few years time, outbound trips by Chinese tourists are predicted to rise to 100 million. China is the biggest growth market in global tourism and Chinese tourists alone account for a rise of 25% of the international travel market. At the same time, China has the most Internet users in the world. With 92% of online users participating in some form of social media, China is the most engaged country online, and the Internet is most influential medium in modern China.

When we decided form Dragon Trail at the end of 2008, just a few months after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Facebook and Twitter were still accessible in China, and the now prominent micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo (Twitter equivalent with 120+ million users) had not been launched yet. When we talked to tourist boards and hotel companies about the power of social media marketing in China, we received many blank stares. A lot has changed in just two short years. As China continues to develop fast in travel and tourism, more and more travel organizations realize the importance of leveraging social media and digital marketing in China.

But we are just getting started. With Chinese consumers shifting from large tour groups to individual travel experiences, new challenges and opportunities arise. We have done a lot of research in this area, and have some exciting solutions coming out later this year to take advantage of the new opportunities. You are all invited to be part of that journey. Stay tuned.

Dear colleagues, we are happy you are part of our growing and yet personal Dragon Trail family. And we want to thank you again for your confidence in us and for your continued support, and wish you a great summer!