Things are beginning to heat up in China's online travel industry as a state of disharmony and conflicting arguments between two major travel sites have resulted in a price war.

China is different when it comes to booking travel destinations online. Instead of seeking the best-discounted prices on flights and hotels that Western travel sites such as Priceline, Chinese tourists would rather seek the best deals on guided trips.

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That means that travel sites are constantly collaborating and partnering up with multiple travel agencies that operate group trips in order to provide the best deal on tour guides. The heavy competitiveness has ensued a price war between travel sites Tuniu and LY.com.

The exchange first began when Tuniu demanded that all of its partner travel agencies give its site better deals on tours than they would give LY.com. Tuniu even told some agencies that they had to choose one travel site over the other and that they couldn't provide tour services for both sites.

LY.com doesn't plan on holding anything back though, as the company's CEO fired back with an internal memo that insulted Tuniu in addition to issuing a "challenge." The memo was translated into English courtesy of Tech in Asia:

"In view of Tuniu's arrogance and monopolistic practices in its international travel services, I [LY CEO Liu Qing] represent [LY.com] and all its partners in issuing Tuniu a challenge: LY.com will take twelve months to completely surpass you professionally. We will serve more than one million people in 2015, all while spending less than Tuniu [in the process].

While a price war may not be the most logical solution for either company, it's certainly going to be beneficial for the ever-growing amount of Chinese tourists seeking to travel abroad. 

TagsOnline travel sites, Tuniu, LY.com, tourism, tour guide, price war, online travel industry