One of the key talks from the TravelDaily China session at ITB Asia on Day 1 was a presentation by Jenna Qian, Head of Destination Marketing at Ctrip. The session offered some interesting insights on the growth of the company and some of their innovative marketing solutions.
Founded in 1999, the company had its IPO on the Nasdaq in December 2003. Currently Ctrip is Asia’s largest OTA and world’s 2nd largest OTA only behind Priceline in-terms of Market Cap. With over 30,000 employees across China and rest of the globe the company currently has 300 million members with over 70% bookings coming from the mobile apps. On Social Media, the company has 20 million WeChat fans and 2.3 billion cumulative downloads.
With strategic investments in Qunar.com, Tujia, Travelfusion, Skyscanner, Makemytrip and several other travel companies trip has a consolidated share across the online travel-ecosystem in China and other major markets in the world.
The growth has been significant for Ctrip in the context that the English version was launched in 2007, the same year when they touched monthly volume of 1 million flight tickets.
Jenna Qian, Head of Destination marketing, Ctrip
Ctrip group at a glance:
- USD 2.85B 2016 Net Revenue
- CNY 430B 2016 GMV
- 520K Domestic Hotels and 670k International Hotels
- 150M+ Average Monthly Active Users
- >70% Booking Volume via Mobile
- 425 International Airlines with connectivity for 5,000 cities
A look at the China Outbound Tourism Market:
- China is ranked Number 1 in Outbound Tourism expenditures
- 122 million Chinese tourists travelled abroad in 2016
- 62 million Chinese tourists travelled abroad in first half of 2017
- Only 10% of Chinese tourists have passports.
- Cumulative Outbound visits is expected to reach 700mn in Next 5 Years
With its massive growth during these years, Ctrip also offers a one-stop holistic marketing approach with its set of offerings. They have a multi-media content platform, customized sales channels, product experts, Big Data and AI solution, Abundant Marketing Resources, Intelligent Media Platform and more. In-terms of service level innovation for customers, the company offers a WeChat Guide, 24 hour Global SOS and Luggage Delivery.
