On August 27th, Ctrip Group (hereinafter referred to as "Ctrip") announced its unaudited financial performance for the second quarter of 2024. During the reporting period, Ctrip's net operating revenue was 12.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14%.
In terms of business, in the second quarter, Ctrip's hotel booking business revenue was 5.1 billion yuan, transportation ticketing business revenue was 4.9 billion yuan, tourism and vacation business revenue was 1 billion yuan, and business travel business revenue was 630 million yuan. At the same time, product research and development expenses amounted to 3 billion yuan, accounting for approximately 23% of net income.
Yang Yanfeng, director of the Online Tourism Research Center at Beijing Union University, told Securities Daily reporters, "Ctrip occupies a superior position in the upstream platform of the tourism industry chain, which can more effectively integrate resources and meet user needs. In the process of tourism and business travel recovery, Ctrip has gained more revenue share from suppliers with its ecological niche advantage, further promoting its net income growth
Seize the benefits of cross-border tourism
Cross border tourism, as an important driving force in the tourism market, has significantly promoted the growth of Ctrip's business. In the field of outbound tourism, Ctrip's outbound hotel and flight booking volume has recovered to the same level as the same period in 2019 in the second quarter.
For inbound tourism, with the implementation of various entry facilitation policies, the "ChinaTravel" trend is surging. Ctrip's inbound travel booking volume has nearly doubled in the first half of this year, contributing about 25% of Ctrip's overseas platform revenue. Ctrip's deepening development in overseas markets such as Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, Europe, and America has driven a year-on-year increase of about 70% in revenue for Ctrip's overseas platforms in the second quarter.
In Yang Yanfeng's view, with the gradual recovery of international routes and the opening of new destinations, the overseas tourism market is experiencing a recovery. With its international strategic layout, Ctrip has successfully captured this market opportunity and enjoyed the growth dividends in cross-border tourism and international e-commerce travel. This not only expands Ctrip's business scope, but also brings considerable revenue growth.
At the same time, in the second quarter, the development of the domestic tourism market also maintained a historical high base, showing a trend of diversified destinations. Ctrip has actively responded to this trend by collaborating with 27 cities in multiple provinces and 22 domestic airports. Through joint marketing, brand promotion, and other activities, it has enhanced the linkage between regional and regional flights, promoting the flow of tourists to more emerging tourist destinations. Quanzhou, Zibo, Luoyang, Anshan and other cities have benefited from this, with a significant increase in the number of tourists compared to the same period last year, and a 30% month on month increase in ticket sales at related airports.
In addition, for segmented markets with high growth potential in the tourism industry such as silver haired and young people, Ctrip collaborates with partners to provide differentiated services and seek industry growth for these groups.
It is reported that the "Ctrip Friends Club" brand has partnered with over 1600 hotels in more than 40 popular destinations across the country, providing over 4000 hotel+package products to meet the travel needs of the silver haired population. As of August 27th, the "Ctrip Friends Club" GMV has reached 1.6 billion yuan. At the same time, Ctrip has developed new tourism products such as "Exhibition+Travel" to cover consumer scenarios such as concerts, music festivals, exhibitions, events, and film festivals, winning the favor of young users.
Continuously cultivating the fields of AI and big data
The reporter noticed that at this financial report conference, Ctrip Group's co-founder and chairman of the board, Liang Jianzhang, CEO Sun Jie, CFO Wang Xiaofan and other company executives, communicated with investors for the first time in the image of AI agents. Liang Jianzhang stated that using AI agents not only makes communication more attractive, but also demonstrates the application prospects of this technology.
Currently, Ctrip is continuously cultivating the fields of AI and big data, driving product and service innovation with technology. From inspiring users' enthusiasm for travel to itinerary planning, to after-sales service, AI is everywhere.
At the financial report conference, Liang Jianzhang's "Digital Twins" introduced two content products of Ctrip's AI application, namely the "Travel Hotspots" and the Word of Mouth List, which are driven by AI and integrate user search data and real evaluations. The former provides travelers with global travel hotspots and inspires travel inspiration; The latter provides a multi-dimensional ranking covering hotels, attractions, catering, and nightlife, providing tourists with reliable travel references and demonstrating the potential of technology in improving tourism experience and service efficiency.
The application of AI on Ctrip heralds the trend of deepening artificial intelligence technology in the vertical tourism field in the future. With rich user data and clear travel scenarios, AI has shown great potential in the tourism industry, especially in itinerary planning, intelligent matching, and customer service. It is expected to make significant progress and promote the development of this field towards a more intelligent and personalized direction Chen Liteng, a digital life analyst at the NetEase E-commerce Research Center, told Securities Daily reporters.
Ctrip CEO Sun Jie said, "China's tourism consumption remains resilient, and the consumption power of Chinese users can also be seen from the booming global tourism market. We will continuously optimize our products and services, and achieve greater success through sincere cooperation with our partners