Trip.com aims to regain control with 300 billion

Author | Liu Baodan

Editor | Zhou Zhiyu

With its stock price nearly doubling and market value surpassing 300 billion, Trip.com is one of the best-performing Chinese concept stocks in 2024. At the same time, the travel market is rapidly changing, and Trip.com has been facing threats from competitors such as Meituan, Douyin, and Fliggy.

Now, Trip.com has decided to seize the opportunity and actively seek change to take control of its development.

On January 6th, at the 2025 Trip.com Global Partner Conference, Chen Ruiliang, Senior Vice President of Trip.com Group and CEO of Trip.com Travel Business Group, stated that under the "Win-Win Ecosystem 3.0 Model," Trip.com will innovate and iterate its ecosystem, focusing on technology, business, and content to achieve greater growth.

The concept of Travel Platform 3.0 reflects Trip.com's insights into the latest trends in the travel market, with the ecosystem representing a new direction for growth.

Chen Ruiliang mentioned that the travel platform has evolved from the "Connection 1.0 Model" that facilitates transactions, to the "Empowerment 2.0 Model" that promotes efficient collaboration, and now it is entering the "Win-Win Ecosystem 3.0 Model." Trip.com aims to create an ecosystem by doing everything possible and creating all necessary conditions. "1.0 is like baking a cake, 2.0 starts to add fuel to the fire, and by 3.0, we want to make the cake bigger."

To make the cake bigger, Trip.com's answer is to expand the ecosystem through technology, business, and content.

In terms of technology, Trip.com has built a systematic AI technology solution, which includes various models, including the travel vertical large model "Trip.com Wenda," along with product development capabilities and popular new technologies like AI Agent. Trip.com's goal is to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance user experience through AI.

Currently, Trip.com is applying AI technology in various aspects. For example, in information entry, Trip.com has increased entry efficiency by 10% in a short period through AI technology investment. Other areas include content generation, marketing, and services. Chen Ruiliang emphasized that AI is everywhere on OTA platforms and will continue to be invested in the future.

Trip.com believes that for the ecosystem, it is important to build its environment, with value judgment being the most crucial aspect. Trip.com's values are user-centered, continuously discovering new value for users.

In 2024, Trip.com's team travel business is promoting a revision of the "Travel" channel on the Trip.com App, breaking down the previous mixed structure of large groups, small groups, private groups, and free travel into two sections: group travel (large groups, small group sharing) and independent travel (private groups, customized travel, packaged free travel products), making it easier for users to find the products they want. Data shows that the channel revision has increased the value of single UV by 43%, and Trip.com has reduced the average selection time for users by 15% through AI algorithms and other measures.

Trip.com is also continuously exploring new incremental spaces, such as inbound tourism and products targeting the silver-haired population. Currently, Trip.com has become the only domestic travel platform supporting multi-language and multi-currency sales, and the company has launched free half-day inbound tours in Shanghai and Beijing, serving over 4,000 overseas tourists, with a cumulative satisfaction and net promoter score close to 90%.

In terms of content, Trip.com continues to make efforts in areas such as reputation rankings, general POI, and live streaming. For example, data shows that in 2024, Trip.com’s in-site live streaming surpassed 90,000 sessions, with nearly 20,000 sessions outside the site, covering over 20 destination countries and regions, with annual transaction volume exceeding 1.5 billion, growing at over 200% Through this series of measures, Trip.com is attempting to capture the new demands of the tourism market. According to Dongxing Securities, the total tourism revenue in the country in 2023 is approximately 5.3 trillion RMB, recovering to 80% of the 2019 level and still in a growth channel.

After more than 20 years of development, China's online tourism market transaction scale has reached 1.1 trillion RMB, with an online tourism platform penetration rate exceeding 60%. Dongxing Securities believes that the competitive structure of online tourism has evolved to an oligopoly.

As the leader in the online tourism market, Trip.com's advantage lies in actively seeking change based on the recovery of performance growth, while the long-accumulated supply chain resources and data are expected to further raise competitive barriers.

According to the financial report, Trip.com's net revenue in the third quarter reached 15.9 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 16%, and net profit reached 6.8 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 47%. The company's outbound hotel and flight bookings have recovered to 120% of the same period in 2019 before the pandemic, and international OTA platform hotel and flight bookings have increased by over 60% year-on-year.

According to industry insiders, Trip.com's market share, including Tongcheng Travel, is around 60%, indicating a relatively stable position. However, the online tourism market is rapidly changing, and with the increasing number of entrants, the pressure on Trip.com has significantly increased.

After more than twenty years of development, tourism platforms have shifted from a supply-side dominated model to a user market. The trend of fragmented travel, combined with a high sensitivity to service, places greater demands on Trip.com's comprehensive capabilities.

In terms of competitive landscape, in addition to players like Meituan and Douyin that directly enter the tourism market, content platforms like Xiaohongshu have become platforms for users to discover travel options. Meanwhile, Alibaba's Fliggy is also making efforts in the overseas market, all of which pose threats to Trip.com.

Over the past decade, Trip.com has grown to become the industry leader through mergers and acquisitions. However, under the new market conditions, Trip.com must more actively defend its position on the business battlefield and grow into an international tourism brand, which is destined to be a more challenging road