Trip.com’s international business maintained rapid recovery, with the overall air-ticket bookings on global platforms increasing over 100% year over year.

Its total net revenue increased by 29% year over year and increased by 72% quarter over quarter to RMB6.9 billion (US$969 million), mainly driven by the robust recovery in China’s domestic market and overseas markets.

• Accommodation reservation revenue was RMB2.9 billion (US$408 million), representing a 32% increase YoY or 114% increase QoQ
• Transportation ticketing revenue was RMB2.6 billion (US$369 million), representing a 44% YoY or 49% QoQ
• Packaged-tour revenue was relatively stable at RMB387 million (US$54 million) compared to the same period in 2021. Packaged-tour revenue increased by 217% from the previous quarter
• Corporate travel revenue was RMB370 million (US$52 million), representing a 9% YoY or 76% increase QoQ

Net income for the third quarter of 2022 was RMB245 million (US$34 million), which improved from a net loss of RMB868 million for the same period in 2021 and a net income of RMB43 million for the previous quarter.

Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2022 was RMB1.4 billion (US$198 million), representing a 164% increase from RMB537 million for the same period in 2021 and a 300% increase from RMB355 million for the previous quarter.

Adjusted EBITDA margin was 21% for the third quarter, compared with 10% for the same period in 2021 and 9% for the previous quarter.

As of 12:00 on 8 December, the travel search popularity for 2023 last week had increased by more than 900% compared with the same period last year. Within two hours after the release of the New Year’s holiday schedule on 8 December, the search volume of Trip.com’s air tickets and hotel products increased by 6 times and 7 times respectively from the same period the previous day.

83.0% of its average MAUs was attributed to Tencent-based platforms with the majority of the traffic coming from WeChat Pay portal and the dropdown list of users’ favorite or most frequently used mini-programs.

The average MPUs increased by 84.5% year-to-year from 14.8 million in the same period of 2020 to 27.3 million, mainly attributable to its stable traffic on WeChat channels. Read our WeChat Mini Programs Insights 2021.

Paying users for the 12-month period ended March 31, 2021, increased by 12.9% year-on-year from 149.9 million in the same twelve-month period of 2020 to 169.3 million. And, Tongcheng Elong’s paying ratio recovered to 11.7% for Q1 2021.

Revenues increased by 60.6% year-to-year to RMB1,613.8 million from RMB1,005.1 million in the same period of 2020.

Compared with Q1 2019, it has achieved 45.0% growth in its domestic room nights sold, with more than 70.0% growth in lower-tier cities, around 20.0% increase in domestic air ticketing volume, and nearly 150.0% increase in bus ticketing volume.

Its total GMV increased by 83.0% year-on-year to RMB33.3 billion.

The adjusted EBITDA increased by 162.7% year-to-year to RMB417.4 million from RMB158.9 million in the same period of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased from 15.8% in the same period of 2020 to 25.9%.

The adjusted profit for the period increased by 279.5% year-to-year to RMB296.3 million from RMB78.1 million in the same period of 2020. The adjusted net margin increased from 7.8% in the same period of 2020 to 18.4%.

Tongcheng-Elong cooperated with short video platforms to promote its hotel and tourist attraction products. Besides, it has commenced cooperation with a leading e-commerce platform in China by providing its travel-related products and services on the platform, to explore new traffic sources and further penetrate into lower-tier cities market.

It also cooperated with hotels to set up QR code scanning function to convert traffic from offline to its WeChat mini-program.

Mini Program platforms 2021: WeChat vs. Alibaba vs. Baidu

Airbnb released a report last week on Airbnb China’s women community. According to the report, as of February 10, 2020, 53% of active Chinese landlords are female, and China is one of the top 10 countries with the largest number of female landlords on the platform.

Among them, the millennial generation (Generation Y) and generation Z female landlords are the main players on the Airbnb platform. About 67% of female landlords are post-80s, post-90s and post-00s.

In 2019, Airbnb’s global female landlords are expected to earn US$14.9 billion (about 104.3 billion yuan) through shared accommodation, of which China ranks eighth in the world.

The year 2019 registered 6.01 billion domestic tourists person-trips in China, up by 8.4 percent over that of the previous year. Read more here.

Among the global landlords who receive at least 150 person-trips, more than 37% of the five-star rated female landlords are from China.

In 2019, the five-star rating of Chinese female landlords is 88%, higher than that of global female landlords (83%); the average rating of Chinese female landlords is 4.81, higher than that of global female landlords (4.77).

67% of the team leaders of Airbnb Chinese community are women.

The top ten cities with the largest distribution of female landlords are:

• Shanghai
• Beijing
• Chengdu
• Guangzhou
• Chongqing
• Hangzhou
• Shenzhen
• Xi’an
• Qingdao
• Wuhan

Last year, the top ten types of accommodations most favored by Chinese female tourists based on Airbnb report were: Inn, boat house, resort, island, farmhouse, country house, hotel apartment, boutique hotel, hotel, and apartment.

Among the top ten popular destinations most favored by global female tourists, China occupied four seats, namely Changsha in Hunan, Sanya in Hainan, Lijiang in Yunnan, and Beihai in Guangxi.

Among them, single-person travel is more and more popular with Chinese women. In 2019, the proportion of Chinese female tourists traveling alone in China increased by more than 1.6 times.

Characteristics of China outbound travelers in 4 segments

Simply pigeonholing people into presumed lifestyle and pursuits by their age and geography can no longer work the same as in the past few years. Quite remarkable changes have taken places in the preference, behavior, and consumption habits of Chinese travelers.

Of the 1,000 respondents surveyed by Hilton and Nielsen who spent in the past year at at least one high-end hotel:

• 83% prefer exploring local customs
• 82% are willing to treat themselves to pay for the premium experience
• 77% hope to have a deep understanding of local culture and get to know people there
• 77% are in pursuit of unique experiences.

Apart from that, they expect hotels to be cultural, comfortable, social, and unique.

Some deem this as a miniature of their lifestyle and attitudes to life. It also influences what they want during traveling. Above all, everything during the trip should be comfortable. And then they turn attention to cultural, explosive, and unique requirements.

As regards their attitudes to consumption, 67% of respondents thought it is vital to enjoying the moment without worrying about the future. Among them, 54% are looking for hotels that can provide something exciting.

69% of respondents said that they are willing to be seen and known of what they like. Among them, 50% prefer a hotel decorated with local styles; 48% are more likely to be attracted by hotels distinctive in design and fashionable in style.

63% of respondents thought travel give them a chance to withdraw themselves from routines and enjoy the pure happiness in daily life. 50% care about how hotels can fulfill their lifestyle requirements.

China saw 5. 68 billion person-trips in 2018, 5.539 million of which were domestic tips and 141.2 million were inbound trips.

Rising outbound travelers from lower-tier cities in China

China’s shared accommodation market generated a total transaction of 14.5 billion yuan (US$2.27 bn) in 2017, up 70.6% from a year earlier, according to State Information Center of China.

A total number of 78 million people were involved in this market, among which 76 million were tenants. This market had developed roughly 3 million domestic housing resources and raised near US$540 million in financing, up 180% over last year.

Chinese millennials were the main user group of shared accommodation platform. Around 70% of them had received undergraduate or further education. Female landlord accounted for 60% of the total. Tenants aged between 18 and 30 accounted for 70% of the total tenants.

First-tier cities and some second or third-tier cities like Chengdu, Chongqing, and Xi’an are the mainstream markets of shared accommodation. Landlords from top 10 ranking cities accounted for near one-half of the total housing resources.

The transactions of shared accommodation market are expected to reach 50 billion yuan (US$7.83 bn) by 2020 with 6 million housing resources offered and over 100 million tenants.

[REPORT] China outbound tourism trend 2018; the beauty and uniqueness are the primary consideration

The number of people in China using social networking and communication sites or apps rose modestly in the first half of 2017, with 84.3% of internet users using WeChat Moments and 65.8% using QZone.

Weibo’s penetration into the internet market continued to grow, increasing by 1.6 percentage points to 38.7%. Vertical social networks, such as Douban (an interest- or hobby-centric chat site) were used by 8.6% of users.

As of June of 2017, 514 million people made purchases and shopped online in China, an increase of 10.2% over the year prior; of these, 480 million used mobile shopping platforms, an increase of 9.0%, accounting for 66.4% of all users.

Food delivery services grew rapidly, albeit from a somewhat lower base; in June of this year 295 million users ordered food online, an increase of over 86 million users from 2016, representing growth of 41.6%. Of those, 274 used mobile apps to place an order, an increase of 41.4%.

China’s online travel booking industry experienced some growth, with the number of users rising to 334 million in the first half of 2017, up by 11.5% and 34.4 million users from 2016.

The number of people booking train tickets, plane tickets, hotels, and vacations online rose by 37.6%, 19.1%, 20.5%, and 9.3%, respectively. Of the 334 million online booking users, 299 million (41.3% of all internet users) used mobile booking apps, an increase of 14.2% from 2016.

Download the details in the updated China Internet Insights report here.

eLong, Home Inns, and Booking lead China’s mobile hotel booking apps market in March 2017. eLong and Home Inns both recorded over one million monthly active users. Airbnb also ranks the sixth with 126% growth YoY.

The MAU of China hotel service mobile apps is 4.35 million with a decrease of 25.9% YoY in March 2017.  The majority of users (over 50%) in this mobile app category are 30 years-old or younger. The top three by growth rates are Pod Inns, eLong, and Meituan Hotel.

China online travel market totaled 602.6 billion yuan (US$87.46 bn) in 2016 with an increase of 34%. It’s estimated to exceed 1 trillion yuan (US$147 bn) in 2019.

The OTA market in China reached 30 billion yuan (US$4.33 bn) in 2016 and will grow to 53 billion yuan (US$7.69 bn) in 2019 according to iResearch.

Online ticketing remains the largest section of China’s online travel market(56.8%) in 2016.

China’s domestic travel market reached 4.44 billion person-trips in 2016, an increase of 11% YoY. The corresponding revenues totaled 3.9 trillion yuan with a growth of 14% according to China National Tourism Administration. See China travel market overview 2016 »

Accommodations accounted for about 20% of total online travel transactions in 2016 and have the potential to reach 100 billion yuan according to China Housing Sharing Development Report 2017.

The number of users sharing accommodations was only 35 million in China in 2016 according to the report. Total transactions of China’s accommodation sharing market reached 24.3 billion yuan with over 2 million users providing such services.

The top online platforms for short-term accommodations in China include Tujia.com, Mayi.com, Xiaozhu.com, and Airbnb. Tujia and Mayi have the highest brand awareness in China (over 70%), followed by Xiaozhu and Airbnb (40%-70%) according to iResearch data.

Search engines, social ads, and web portals are the top channels for China online users to become aware of short-term accommodation platforms.

Short-term accommodation market in China reached 8.78 billion yuan in 2016 with a growth rate of 106.1%; it’s estimated to grow by 42.6% and 35.5% to reach 12.52 billion yuan and 16.96 billion yuan in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

Close to 60% users in China booked short-term accommodations for family trips. Traveling with friends (17.5%) is the second largest user group.

Over 60% users book short-term accommodations 2-3 times per year. And, over half (50.6%) stayed an average duration of 3-4 nights.

Apartments are the most selected room type (50.6%) for short-term accommodation market in China in 2016, followed by inns (23.2%) and farmhouses (12.3%).

43.6% charged an average daily rate of between 200 and 300 yuan, which is about the price of economic hotels in China. 36.9% between 301 and 500 yuan.

Unlike hotel bookings on Ctrip or eLong in China (most require no payment for bookings), over one-third of short-term accommodations require full payment for booking and 40.6% charge deposits. Users are currently not comfortable with this; over one-third of users expect no payment at all for booking rooms.

Having more rooms for selection is the top factor for Chinese users to choose a specific short-term accommodation platform; photos, reasonable pricing, and customer service are also important factors.

Mobile clients are the top channel for online bookings of short-term accommodations.

84.6% short-term accommodation users prefer to book their stay around scenic spots; 61.6% in business districts; 46.2% near airports; and, 32.4% near subways.

Over 60% short-term accommodation users in China are between 26 and 35 years-old. Near 80% have a degree; and, over one-third have a monthly family income of between 15K to 20K yuan.

Also read: An Overview of China’s Local “Airbnb” (Xiaozhu, Tujia, Zhubaijia…)

Following the rising success of Airbnb, China’s short-term accommodation market is also booming during the recent years and reached 24.3 billion yuan in 2016. Players leading this market include Tujia.com, Mayi.com, Xiaozhu.com, and Airbnb.

Tujia Short-term Accommodation, Tujia.com

Founded in December 2011, Tujia acquires bulk and standard new housing sources working with real estate developers and room owners. And, it standardizes the management and operations of the rooms. It offers the most comprehensive room selections in the short-term accommodation market, over 400,000 rooms across travel destinations and key cities in China.

Xiaozhu, one of its main competitors, mainly targeted at first-tier and second-tier cities while Tujia mainly at tourism destination cities market, which was similar to HomeAway.

In terms of the business operation model, HomeAway and Tujia are totally different. Tujia cooperated with about 80% of China’s top 100 real estate developers, providing design ideas and solutions of houses to make it more in line with consumers’ expectations. The standardization of new houses could solve the shortage and quantity problems of Tujia.

In addition to renting houses from the developers, from the management point of view, Tujia would also support short-term hotel accommodation by standardized services and a large number of houses. In the future, Tujia would further integrate online and offline resources and transform to a combined model of both B2C and C2C.

Ant Short-term Accommodations, Mayi.com

Mayi.com, founded in November 2011, offers beyond 300,000 short-term accommodations including tickets of tourists attractions, car rentals, and etc. Mayi was acquired by Tujia in 2016.

It focuses on family customers and 80% of its bookings came from family travelers.

Xiaozhu Short-term Accommodation, xiaozhu.com

Launched in August 2012, Xiaozhu.com platform provides about 140,000 rooms. It advocates personalized accommodation space to encourage the landlord to share their own life experiences, allowing users to enjoy deep and unique experiences.

China’s “Airbnbs” actually began from online classified information platforms, such as mayi.com, muniao.com and etc. Xiaozhu short-term accommodation was the closest in concept and business model with Airbnb. However, the exact clone of Airbnb model may not work well in China as proved; Xiaozhu had to adapt to localize its business.

By accelerating the growth of the supply end, Xiaozhu is devoted to building an order platform for C2C model. As of July 2015, the platform covered more than 200 cities, and the number of accommodations exceeded 50,000 and about 10,000 individual house owners. The number of transactions has increased by four times compared with that in early 2015.

Related: China Outbound Travel Forecast 2016-2021

Zhubaijia Short-term Accommodation, zhubaijia.com

Founded in March 2012, Zhubaijia focuses on outbound tourism market with over 250,000 rooms across 70 countries. Over 60% of its revenues came from overseas short-term accommodations in 2016.

Zhubaijia was a special existence in China’s short-term accommodation market. It targeted domestic outbound tourists who would rent houses abroad for a short period, which is different from Xiaozhu and Tujia.

Zhubaijia was originated from the Asian office of Wimdu in October 2012, formerly known as the “European Airbnb”. After Airbnb entering China, it first expanded the needs of Chinese outbound tourists, which was almost coincident with the strategy of Zhubaijia. However, many houses and services from Airbnb couldn’t be guaranteed and suitable for the Chinese, which was just the superiority of Zhubaijia.

Zhubaijia had its own set of access and audit standards of houses: the platform would follow the Putonghua proficiency level of landlords, attitude towards Chinese, reception of Chinese tourists, response speed, cleanliness, traffic, facilities and so on to search for good accommodation sources. In addition, Zhubaijia would supply a series of services including consultancy, language services, delivery, dispute resolution and others.

Most short-term platforms including Airbnb generate revenues by charging a commission while Zhubaijia does not charge any from users or landlords. The future business model of Zhubaijia would be to generate revenues through related outbound travel services and might support personalized services for different users.

With the development of the online travel market and the popurity of the tourism, short-term accommodation would usher in new development opportunities. And to gain profits, China’s short-term accommodation operators must change to meet with China’s unique situation; or they may be out of the market.

Also read:  China Travel Market to Reach $617.4B in 2015

Total transactions of China’s online travel market reached 162.76 billion yuan (US$23.59 billion). OTA revenues totaled 8.19 billion yuan (US$1.19 billion).

China’s online travel market totaled 162.76 billion yuan (US$23.59 billion) with an increase of 11.8% QoQ or 28.4% YoY. Online travel transactions via mobile apps continued to grow to 62.2% in September 2016 from 59.2% in June 2016.

Total revenues in China’s OTA market reached 8.19 billion yuan with a growth rate of 38.7% YoY.

Air tickets booking accounted for 53.6% of China’s online travel transactions in Q3 2016; accommodations 21.8%; and, holiday booking 18.8%.

Qunar was ranked the top generic travel booking app by coverage in September 2016 according to data from TalkingData, followed by Ctrip and LY.com apps.

12306, China Railway’s official app, remains the top choice for train tickets booking. Spring Airlines made it to the top among airlines booking apps with 0.43% coverage, followed by apps from Eastern Airlines (0.27%), China Southern Airlines (0.2%) and Air China (0.15%).

Among accommodation booking apps, Home Inns, eLong and Airbnb are the top 3 by coverage. Airbnb, Tujia and Mayi are the only three homestay network platforms in the top 10 while the rest are for hotel bookings.

Huawei, Samsung, and Xiaomi smartphones are the most popular Android brands among travelers during this year’s National Day holiday.

The top mobile apps for travel information by coverage are Mafengwo (0.58%), TripAdvisor (0.48%), Travel Translator (0.31%; by Mafengwo), Qyer (0.26%), and Breadtrip (0.22%).

On average Chinese outbound travelers spent 17% less per day in a twelve-month period than the previous year – from RMB3,324 (US$508) to RMB2,849 (US$436) according to a survey from Hotels.com.

Top Chinese spenders cut back by 68%, from RMB13,800 (US$2,111) to RMB8,228 (US$1,258). That meant the majority settling on three star rather than more luxurious hotels. However, the survey also indicates the spending is expected to rebound in the next year, with one-third of travelers planning to spend more.

The survey pointed out two biggest challenges facing those providing accommodation to Chinese travelers: a lack of Mandarin-speaking staff and of China UnionPay card facilities.

When planning their next trip, Chinese travelers are particularly taking into account safety, sightseeing, dining and ease of visa applications, with the currency of the intended country not generally a factor.

According to hotel room demand on the Hotels.com China website, the most popular countries for Chinese travelers to visit in the last two years were the USA followed by Thailand. In 2015, Japan overtook Hong
Kong in third spot and Australia climbed from eighth most visited to sixth on the list.

In terms of cities, Hong Kong followed by Bangkok remained the top two from 2014 to 2015. Tokyo climbed from the ninth to fourth most visited city from 2014 to 2015 and Chiang Mai entered the top ten list in 2015.

When it comes to a wish list of countries to visit in the next 12 months, Australia came out number one at 15%. Also high on the intended travel list were Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and the Maldives.

The number of outbound Chinese tourists surged during the Chinese New Year holidays in 2016 and many countries and regions have been ready to meet the Chinese tourist shopping tide. Japan, Thailand, and Australia were popular outbound destinations.

Chinese outbound tourists to Japan was predicted to reach a record high of 6 million person-trips during CNY in 2016 according to Japan Tourism Organization. Japan was the second popular outbound destination of Chinese tourists during CNY. The most popular destination was Thailand.

The Japanese retail industry faced a large number of shopping Chinese during CNY in 2016. Famous Japan travel attractions were crowded with Chinese tourists. Hotel accommodation fees increased and China to Japan airplane tickets also increased.

Japan’s official statistics showed that Japan’s tourism revenue turned to profitability in 2015 for the first time in 53 years. However, the increase of Chinese tourists visiting Japan has slowed since the second half of 2015.

Australia was also popular among Chinese tourists. China had more than 10 million people applying for a visa to Australia in January 2016, which has set a new monthly record high. Although Chinese tourists were still enthusiastic in shopping, they were more rational towards goods.

Also read: China Outbound Travelers Shopping Overview 2015