Gist: TripAdvisor acquires Kuxun.cn and expands into $6.9 billion Chinese online travel market. Chinese market in a lot of sectors is huge. Good play.

Boston-based TripAdvisor, a division of Expedia Inc. (EXPE) announced their acquisition of Beijing-based Kuxun.cn, a Chinese flight, hotel and rail search engine. CEO Steve Kaufer sees China as a huge opportunity for growth, nothing that this acquisition will “further position TripAdvisor for expansion in this fast-growing market segment.” TripAdvisor dabbled in the Chinese market in the past with DaoDao.com, a travel reviews site, which turned out quite well. Kuxun.cn will stay an independent subsidiary.

The TripAdvisor press release notes that the Chinese online travel market is worth $6.9 billion (USD), according to a research study performed by travel industry research house PhoCusWright. “Due to a variety of factors, the online channel is expected to continue on a strong growth trajectory, and by 2011 will account for about 20% of the total market.”

I’m surprised that a travel house hasn’t picked up on the Chinese market yet, especially with the metrics available in the past that extrapolated the Chinese online travel market pretty damn close to the actual values. Indeed, most Chinese markets at the moment are ripe for the picking. Chinese social networking site QZone, based on the QQ instant-messaging platform and owned by Shenzhen-based internet leader Tencent (SEHK: 0700), surpasses Facebook, MySpace, and all other traditional social networks in both users and activeness. It’s also the right time to start a Chinese startup.

Good play, TripAdvisor.