Reflecting its Growing International Profile, Ctrip Changes its Name to Trip.com Group Limited. Already the largest OTA in China and one of the largest in the world, Ctrip, which turns 20 years old next month, is changing its name to Trip.com Group Limited. Said James Liang, the company’s executive chairman: “The new name reflects the services and products we provide, and can be easily remembered by global users. In October, we will celebrate the 20th Anniversary. Over the next decade, we will strive to become one of the most innovative and respected companies in the global travel industry.”
Package Travel Sales Increase: Of interest to those in the group travel sector—midst some powerful, record-breaking financial results for the second quarter of 2019 that accompanied its name change announcement—was a note that packaged-tour revenue for the second quarter of 2019 was $153 million, representing a 25 percent increase from the same period in 2018, primarily driven by significant traffic from offline stores and high demand of customized tours. Packaged-tour revenue for the second quarter of 2019 remained consistent with that for the previous quarter.
New research has determined that one-third (16.3 percent) of respondents chose an adventure trip for their last holiday. The 2019 study found that 2.7 percent of departures could be categorized as “hard adventure,” while 13.6 percent pursued “soft adventure” experiences. The China Adventure Tourism Market Study—it came from Bannikin Travel and Tourism, a travel consultancy based in Toronto and Hong Kong that conducted the study—surveyed more than 300 Chinese travelers over the age of 18 who had taken a trip in the past year. “This report delves deep into who Chinese adventure travelers are—their planning habits, income, spending habits and dream destinations,” said Natasha Martin, managing director of Bannikin Asia. “We’ve never had better insight into how to market toward the Asian travel market and break into one of the largest tourism spends out there.”
The survey was sent with the objective of discovering how many Chinese travelers actively seek out adventure while on vacation. Here are some of the report’s main findings:
—The total adventure market size for China (based on accommodation spending only) is $8.2 billion per year.
—Adventure travel spend from China represents 0.64 percent of total international tourism spend.
—The top destinations for adventure travelers were United States, Thailand, Australia and Japan.
—Time in nature, camping and backpacking are some of the most popular activities for Chinese adventure tourists.
—72 percent of Chinese adventure travelers spend between 4-10 days abroad, lower than Western adventure travelers.
Expecting outbound to grow to half its business, Ctrip is focusing on recruiting and attracting talent outside China. Reports ChinaTravelNews, Ctrip, which is the largest travel group in China—and which recently chose to change its name—”is bullish about serving the high-end group of travelers, its outbound business and also the contribution from its international business.” In an interview with ChinaTravelNews, Jane Sun, Ctrip’s CEO, indicated that the overall revenue generated from the group’s international business is expected to reach 50 percent in the next 5 to 10 years.
“Our hotel and flight ticket sales for cross-border travel activities maintained fast growth during the quarter, more than doubling the growth of China’s outbound trips,” said Sun, adding, “we are confident that outbound as well as foreign-to-foreign international tickets will be the future drivers of our business.”
She said that in order to grow its international business, recruiting proficient local talent in each market is also going to be the key going forward and that “…we need to recruit talent at local level. So, we are putting concerted efforts to identify and recruit and train our team in each market so that we can build a strong team, understand our customers and build our product offerings that are suitable for the local customers and move methodically into each region,” she noted. “Mainly, the people will make the business penetrate further into each region.”
WeChat Weekly Rankings for the week of Sept. 2-8: A product of Dragon Trail Interactive and Dingla, these ratings give us a one-week snapshot as to what is working among users of the world’s largest social media and mobile payment app, with over a billion monthly users.
NTOs:
No. 1: Japan National Tourism Organization: Ginza Tokyo shopping guide.
No. 2: Austrian National Tourist Office: Vienna has been named 2019’s best city in the world to live in.
No. 3: Tourism Australia: Cute animals to see in Australia.
DMOs:
No. 1: Dubai Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing: Dubai travel guide for senior travelers.
No. 2: Macao Government Tourism Office: Awesome places to watch the Macao International Fireworks Display 2019.
No. 3: South Australian Tourism Commission: Amazing unknown places to discover in South Australia.
Airlines:
N.1 AirAsia: Member offers
N.2 All Nippon Airways: Lucky bags
N.3 Cebu Pacific: September offers
Attractions & Museums
No. 1: V&A Museum: Blanc de Chine, a continuous conversation.
No. 2: The Museum of Modern Art, New York: Exhibition history of MoMA.
No. 3: Louvre Museum, Paris: Emperor Kangxi and the Sun King Louis XIV.
Hotels
No. 1: Marriott Bonvoy: Marriott Hotels & Resorts launches ‘M Passport’ program.
No. 2 Hilton: 100th Anniversary | Exclusive member discount.
No. 3 Wyndham Hotel Group: Clean water project with the One Foundation.
About the data: The data is jointly collected and compiled by Dragon Trail Interactive and Dingla, a B2B travel marketing platform assisting foreign organizations build long term travel trade relationships in China.
About the Ranking:
Ranking criteria: Accounts are ranked according to the highest number of views per total number of posts published. WeChat views are “unique views”.
No. overseas National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) surveyed: 52
No. overseas regional and city Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) surveyed: 74
No. overseas airlines surveyed: 48
No. overseas cruise lines surveyed: 17
No. overseas attractions & museums surveyed: 27
No. overseas hotels surveyed: 46
For more information, contact communications@dragontrail.com
