With more than 1,000 hotels under nine brands, Starwood Hotels & Resorts is the first Pegasus customer to go live on the connection.

As the number of domestic and international Chinese travellers surges, the agreement makes Starwood properties available to the 7,000 travel agents who work with TravelSky managing the country’s growing demand.

TravelSky also has full access to the Pegasus Hotel Content Database (HCD), the largest repository of hotel descriptive content in the world, which houses nearly 1.5 million images, videos and virtual tours, as well as property and room descriptions.

TravelSky has long-dominated the airline market in China, recognised as both the second largest travel market in the Asia Pacific region and the world’s second largest economy. According to PhoCusWright, China’s total travel market in 2012 is projected to approach US$74 billion.

As travellers from the country’s exploding middle class clamour for international bookings the new connection with Pegasus offers accessibility to the single largest collection of electronically bookable hotels, said QiangXue, Travelsky’s vice president, tour and transport solutions.

“We maintain more than 100,000 terminals in over 300 Chinese cities. Additionally, 7,000 travel agencies and all the global distribution systems depend on access to our air central reservation systems,” he added..

The partnership enables TravelSky to address the hospitality needs of its1.2 billion customers by allowing them to book a variety of hotels anywhere in the world.”

TravelSky completed the Pegasus Distribution certification process the week of April 30, 2012.