MoonFox Data: Ctrip achieved multiple-fold revenue growth in Q3, surviving through the harsh winter amidst industry recovery

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CHENGDU, China, Dec. 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- About us: Aurora Mobile (NASDAQ: JG) established in 2011, is a leading customer engagement and marketing technology service provider in China. Its business includes notification services, marketing growth, development tools, and data products. As its sub-brand, MoonFox Data is a leading expert in data insights and analysis services across all scenarios, aiming to help companies gain market insights and empower precise decision-making.

Ctrip (Trip.com) Group's revenues reached 13.7 billion yuan in Q3 2023, marking a remarkable year-on-year growth of 99%. Among them, accommodation reservation revenue amounted to 5.6 billion yuan, representing a 92% increase year-on-year, while transportation ticketing revenue stood at 5.4 billion yuan, increasing by 105% on a year-on-year basis. These two sectors continue to dominate the group's total revenues, accounting for more than 80% of the overall business. Moreover, revenues from tourist and vacation services and corporate travel management also achieved rapid growth, reaching 1.3 billion yuan by 243% and 590 million yuan by 60%, respectively, compared to last year.

With the lifting of pandemic restrictions and the normalization of travel, the OTA online travel industry is experiencing a rapid recovery. As a leading travel platform in the industry, Ctrip has seized the opportunities presented by fluctuating market growth and has achieved a steady rise in revenues. We believe that the company has achieved accelerated development in a positive industrial environment, securing its position in the top tier and capturing user attention through a customized product portfolio and a complete service system.

I. Retain users by taking advantages of transportation and accommodation businesses, solidifying the leading position in the OTA industry

According to MoonFox iApp data, the MAU of the Ctrip App steadily increased to 106 million in October from 75.868 million at the beginning of this year. The data show that April and August 2023 marked the peak in the MAU figures, registering 107 million and 119 million, respectively. Ctrip has captured the markets by satisfying the increasing primary demands of travelers in the transportation and accommodation.

Among them, transportation is the first point for Ctrip to retain users and foster loyalty.

The air ticket sector is the key battleground for Ctrip's competitive efforts and also the core for retaining travelers in first-tier and second-tier cities. Firstly, in view of the relatively homogeneous nature of different airlines' flight services and the emphasis on prices in competition for users, Ctrip has intensified efforts in upstream coverage and cooperated with over 510 airlines to secure lower prices through multiple channels for platform superiority. Second, Ctrip has made significant investments in the customer service field. By the end of 2022, the number of its customer service personnel had surpassed 10,000, providing guaranteed support for the core flight ticket business. Finally, in the respect of automation, the platform consistently enhances its autonomous ticketing system, maintaining a self-service rate of over 90%, and the intelligent customer service can more address travelers' issues.

In the field of the air ticketing, Ctrip has established key competitive pricing and exceptional services on the platform, effectively enhancing user retention, facilitating continuous business follow-up and increasing user competitive.

In terms of train ticketing, the platform needs to connect with the external 12306 ticketing system. As train ticket fees are inaccessible, Ctrip mainly generates revenues from value-added services, such as increasing the probability of successfully securing tickets and introducing seat locking for confirmed reservations. Despite the relatively small contribution of this revenue, these services have attracted significant user attention due to the high demand for train ticketing and their strong social connection. For example, MoonFox iApp data shows that the Ctrip Suanya app saw the MAU exceed 17.417 million in September, representing a MoM increase of 17.12%.

Extensive coverage and robust services provide the foundation for the stable growth of the transportation ticketing business, ensuring a significant increase in overall users and empowering the expansion of the accommodation reservation business.

According to MoonFox iApp data, Ctrip App exhibited distinctive user demographic characteristics in November 2023, with the 26–35-year-old age user group accounting for 30.11% and the high-spending user group representing over 44%.

The accommodation business is crucial for Ctrip to build its own brand identity and attract core user groups.

First, Ctrip is focused on building a high-quality hotel supply chain and accommodation brand network. Ctrip began investing in H World Group and Beijing Tourism Group in 2010 and made separate investments in Atour, Lagom, and other hotels in 2017, most of which are medium- and high-end hotel chain groups targeting tourist groups with high spending power. Secondly, theme room types are another major competitive service provided by Ctrip. The company actively cooperates with brands such as Wahaha and Honor of Kings to launch film rooms, family rooms, and other special rooms to meet the customized needs of various types of users. Finally, as an aggregation platform, Ctrip has a complete set of cooperation systems to capture room information through serial API connections and to confirm reservations based on the eBooking backend, thus better satisfying users' needs in price and region comparisons.

Overall, after years of cultivating the brand and accumulating resources, Ctrip has established a comprehensive service system that covers the entire transportation and accommodation processes. Additionally, the company prioritizes tourist and vacation services, as well as business travel.

According to MoonFox iApp data, the user composition of Ctrip App is highly desirable. In October 2023, the heavy users of the platform account for 29.9%, outperforming Fliggy's 20.9% and Tuniu's 5.5%. Beyond addressing the necessary transportation and accommodation needs, Ctrip provides extensive tourist and vacation services, enriching content for reference and comparison to enhance user engagement and attract more heavy users.

Tourist and vacation services primarily consist of the company's bundled customized travel products, mainly including package tours, semi-guided tours, and private travels. First, similar to transportation and hotel services, Ctrip cooperates with numerous travel agencies to integrate various travel itineraries and solutions. Secondly, Ctrip provides self-operated package tour services, such as the dedicated packages for elderly parents, which feature high-quality services including complimentary airport transfers and independent tour guide services. Finally, Ctrip utilizes official livestreaming to promote popular travel routes, improving the credibility of the services through brand endorsements and return and exchange guarantees.

Finally, Ctrip Corporate Travel prioritizes attracting businesses with enhanced and efficient services and providing dedicated services to B2B customers for corporate travel management. The company puts great efforts into solving the pain points of enterprises and segmented scenario demands. For example, Ctrip Corporate Travel supports multi-scenario access to solve adaptation problems for some enterprises using diverse platforms such as Feishu and DingTalk or large national and central institutions using internal OA systems. In addition, the platform enables direct business-to-business settlement without prepayment fees or invoicing. According to MoonFox iApp data, the seven-day average active user retention rate of the Ctrip Corporate Travel App surpassed 30%, with the MAU and industry penetration rate steadily increasing.

In summary, the tourist and vacation services and corporate travel management businesses reply on the company's accumulated users under the long-term platform operation strategy, and the diving of segmented scenarios has further enhanced the company's influence in the OTA market.

II. Shaping resource superiority through years of deployment and expanding overseas markets through dual platforms

The company's notable achievements are not limited to the domestic market but extend overseas. According to the Q3 financial report data of Ctrip, the total bookings of its international OTA platform increased by more than 100% compared to the same period in 2022 and 2019.

Ctrip began to cooperate with overseas travel platforms early in 2014. In August of the same year, the US OTA giant Priceline acquired a 10% stake in the company and onboarded its hotels, suppliers, and other resources. In 2015, Ctrip acquired Travelfusion, a British integrated aviation distribution platform. In 2016, it invested in the largest online travel company in India, MakeMyTrip, to expand businesses in the country as well as in South Asia and other regions. With extensive experience in overseas deployment, Ctrip has accumulated a wealth of overseas OTA resources, laying the groundwork for its international business expansion.

Currently, Ctrip's overseas businesses focus on two major platforms. First, Trip.com offers one-stop travel booking services for overseas tourists, providing an extensive range of flight options in collaboration with local hotels across over 200 countries and regions. Second, its overseas travel search platform, Skyscanner, offers tourists' access to car rentals, hotel bookings, and other various services, with support for multiple languages and currencies. In terms of the market, Trip.com prioritizes the needs of users in the Asia-Pacific region, while Skyscanner targets the US and European markets.

In the post-epidemic era, the outbound travel demands of Chinese tourists have risen significantly. As per the Q3 financial report data, the company's outbound hotel and flight reservations had rebounded to about 80% of the pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Tourists can conveniently purchase flight tickets and enjoy other overseas travel services via these two Ctrip platforms. Serving as local platforms with a principal emphasis on overseas markets, they have attracted more interest from domestic tourists. Outbound businesses have also become an important part of the company's revenues, and the platforms can quickly build a mature service ecosystem overseas by replicating domestic models.

Furthermore, backed by Ctrip Group, Trip.com and Skyscanner can capitalize on their service overlaps, differentiating target markets for collaborative growth, and exchanging the implementation experience in different countries for rapid market expansion. The penetration rates of the two platforms in overseas markets are expected to further increase.

We believe that Ctrip will continue to strengthen efforts in the overseas business sector and concentrate on improving the quality of overseas travel services. Current business operations include the self-operated service Ctrip Car Rentals, which focuses on quality fulfillment, and the Ctrip Community, which centers around high-quality business cooperation and overseas travel content. The share of the company's overseas businesses is projected to grow further.

III. First large vertical travel industry model Ctrip WenDao promotes intelligent travel

According to the financial data, Ctrip's product development expenses reached 3.6 billion yuan in Q3 2023, up 44% year-on-year and 21% month-on-month, mainly directed towards technology investment and product research and development. AI is a core scenario that Ctrip focuses on. Amid the current competition in the training of segmented scenarios and big models, the company released the first large vertical travel industry model, Ctrip WenDao.

First, Ctrip WenDao is designed to cater to clear user needs, offering search results for air tickets and hotels based on relevant descriptions. Additionally, users can articulate complex, lengthy requests without specifying keywords. When users are undecided about their destinations, Ctrip WenDao will provide recommendations for suitable destinations, attractions, and itinerary planning based on their ideas or descriptions.

And we believe that the primary impact of Ctrip WenDao on businesses lies in relieving the pressure on customer service personnel. As mentioned above, customer service accounts for a significant portion of overall costs, so the smart reply service provided by Ctrip WenDao can effectively reduce online inquiries and related efforts. In the future, coupled with more intelligent algorithms, Ctrip WenDao will enable it to provide tourists with clearer hotel recommendations and distinct travel advice based on local popularity indices.

In conclusion, Ctrip is in a phase of gradual recovery, with the travel market still not fully restored to its pre-pandemic condition and tourist demands yet to be fully realized. We believe that some platforms led by Douyin and Xiaohongshu are rapidly eroding the share of major traditional industries and attracting Gen Z through content diversion and promotion campaigns. Increasing brand influence by focusing on content will be the key to expand users and solidifying its position in the industry. For example, the company can increase brand exposure and visibility to more interested users through live streaming and business accounts, and expand and retain users by relying on price advantages and platform services. We look forward to witnessing Ctrip's continuous growth and excellent business performance in the future.

Aurora-Moonfox consistently monitors industry development and regularly tracks corporate performance. The following is our research report on industry hotspots:

• 《Image-Text Content, Hot Items, and Seeding Drive the Rapid Growth of RED Community》；
• 《Tencent focuses on the WeChat ecosystem and leverages mini-programs to create the second growth curve》；
• 《NetEase Q3 Financial Report Game-driven Multi-segment Growth》；

If you need a report, please contact us to obtain it.

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Name: Felix
Title: Director of Sales, Industry Insight Division
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SOURCE Aurora