According to big business data released by China's Ministry of Commerce on July 20, sales of online travel products and attractions in China rose 272 in the first half of the year compared with the same period last year..4%。Driven by a significant recovery in the tourism market, Ctrip's performance in the second quarter was very strong.。

September 5, Ctrip Group (hereinafter referred to as "Ctrip") released the second quarter of 2023 results announcement。Data show that in the second quarter of this year, Ctrip's net operating income reached 11.2 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), up 180% year-on-year, up 22% month-on-month.。

In the second quarter, Ctrip achieved outstanding results in a number of business revenues.。specifically,

● Accommodation booking revenue was $4.3 billion, up 216% YoY and 23% YoY。

● Transportation ticketing revenue was 4.8 billion yuan, up 173% year-on-year and 16% month-on-month.。

● Operating income from tourism and vacation business is 7.2.2 billion yuan, up 492% YoY and 87% YoY。

● Business travel management business operating income of 5.8.4 billion yuan, up 178% year-on-year and 31% month-on-month。

In terms of net profit, Ctrip's net profit in the second quarter was 6.4.8 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 814% due to last year's low base ($43 million in the same period last year).。But it shrank sharply from the previous quarter, with net profit of 33.7.4 billion yuan, down about 82% month-on-month.。Adjusted EBITDA was $3.7 billion, up 942% YoY and 32% YoY。

Ctrip's gross profit in the second quarter was 92.400 million yuan, up 203.900 million yuan, up 22.2%, better than market expectations of 87.200 million yuan。Adjusted EBITDA margin was 33%, compared to 9% in the same period last year and 31% in the previous quarter.。Diluted earnings per common share of 0.94 yuan。

As of June 30, 2023, Ctrip had a balance of $75 billion in cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investments and held-to-maturity investments and long-term wealth management products.。

Driven by demand, the tourism market continues to maintain a strong momentum。Ctrip said domestic hotel bookings rose 170% year-on-year in the second quarter, up more than 60% from the same period in 2019。Outbound ticket and hotel bookings returned to more than 60% of their 2019 level in the second quarter, better than the international airline industry's return to 37% of passenger traffic.。In addition, the company's international OTA platform increased ticket bookings by more than 120% year-over-year, double the level of the same period in 2019.。

Liang Jianzhang, co-founder and chairman of the board of directors of Ctrip, said at the performance call that Chinese consumer demand began to shift from commodity consumption to service consumption, thus tourism demand has always remained resilient.。Ctrip will also continue to improve product supply and enhance the user experience in innovative ways such as AI to fully prepare for future opportunities.。

                     

Seize the opportunity of tourism recovery, Ctrip make "friends"

                

As the tourism market continues to recover, Ctrip is also continuing to expand its "circle of friends."。

In terms of tourist attractions, on May 18, Ctrip and Beijing Global Resort jointly held the first peer promotion conference in Shanghai to lay out the summer market.。The reason why the first to choose to hold a promotion meeting in Shanghai, because according to Ctrip's data, the Beijing Global Resort is the hottest search term for tourists from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai。The two also held another promotion meeting in Chengdu in June.。

Ji Yihua, CEO of Ctrip's ticket event, said: "As China's first and the world's fifth Universal Studios theme park, Beijing Universal Resort has been extremely popular and topical since its opening.。We are also very optimistic about the driving effect of Beijing Global Resort in the cross-provincial tourism market.。With the blessing of Beijing Global Resort, the itinerary around Beijing and the Beijing-Tianjin-Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei connection tour will be more abundant, and Ctrip will also help Beijing Global Resort to enhance its influence in the national tourism market and become a 'gold-lettered signboard' to attract tourists from other provinces.。"

In addition, Ctrip also cooperated on the popular tourist attractions of college students' special forces - Mount Tai。On July 7, Ctrip signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Taishan Cultural Tourism Group。According to the official introduction, Taishan Cultural Tourism Group will rely on Ctrip's advantages in online traffic and offline brand stores, business product lines and marketing promotion methods, mature information technology and supply chain services in the national tourism range to strengthen the operation and promotion of Taishan + Huiyou package products, attract more tourists to Thailand, deepen market-oriented cooperation in the hotel and homestay industry, innovate and create a town with healthy tourism characteristics, and boost the iterative upgrading and integrated development。

In terms of overseas tourism, on June 30, Ctrip and New Zealand Tourism signed a memorandum of strategic cooperation in Shanghai, which is committed to making New Zealand a well-known cultural tourism destination in the Asia-Pacific region.。It is reported that the two will carry out a series of joint marketing activities to attract tourists from China, East Asia, Southeast Asia and other regions to New Zealand for tourism and vacation.。

In terms of payment, at the end of June, Ctrip cooperated with the Shanghai Branch of China Construction Bank to realize the mutual exchange function between foreign currency and digital RMB.。It is reported that the service is mainly aimed at foreigners who face difficulties in digital payment after short-term entry.。After the opening of this function, foreigners can exchange foreign currency notes into digital RMB at Ctrip's foreign currency exchange outlets and deposit them in their digital RMB wallet.。During the period in China, foreigners can use the Digital RMB APP to make payments.。Before leaving the country, foreigners will then go to Ctrip's foreign currency exchange outlets to exchange the remaining digital RMB back into foreign currency cash.。

                

AI big model "Ctrip asked": more accurate match user needs

                   

Ctrip in July, released the first tourism industry vertical model "Ctrip asked," in the international platform is launched TripGenie。According to reports, the model is based on about 20 billion travel data and 2 billion itinerary data, which can assist users in travel destinations, hotels, attractions booking and itinerary planning.。

For Ctrip, "Ctrip asked" the most important task is to more accurately match the needs of users。

CEO Sun Jie said, "Ctrip asked" is mainly to serve the pre-trip scene, one is the online question and answer, can improve the accuracy of user questions reply; the second is multilingual services, some small languages may not have enough information to train, through the big model, such problems can be solved; the third is automatic reply, e-mail can accurately extract what users want to know。

In addition, Ctrip in the intelligent algorithm based on the hotel, attractions, itinerary of the commonly used theme recommendation for manual verification and the formation of the "Ctrip word of mouth list."。It is reported that the newly launched "Ctrip Word of Mouth List" can shorten the decision-making time of a user's trip from 9 hours to 6 hours..6 hours, up 27%。

Liang Jianzhang said that if AI recommendations are more accurate, can find hot spots, meet individual needs, and users do not feel laborious, then they will be able to better match demand and supply.。He said: "With the help of AI, we can do a better job of matching.。"

"Ctrip asked" is essentially an AI assistant, although it can improve efficiency, but after all can not replace the user to make decisions。

Liang Jianzhang says travel is a need to find novelty and is unpredictable。Therefore, no matter how smart the AI assistant is, it is impossible to make decisions instead of users, so Ctrip's AIGC solution is to launch Ctrip's word-of-mouth list and other series of lists, through machine learning, and invest a lot of manpower to manually verify common topics, to provide users with intelligent query results outside the list, to assist users in decision-making.。He said: "The most important thing in the tourism industry is reliability. Therefore, it is our long-term work to continuously improve the reliability of vertical large models.。"

On the occasion of the release of "Ctrip asked," Liang Jianzhang said: "In terms of AI, machine learning, and big data investment, we did not start today.。Prior to this we have been a long-term investment, the current 'data + AI' team has hundreds of people。"

He revealed: "Each of our departments is closely integrated with the big model, and the search algorithms and robotics algorithms we used to do are also integrated with the big model.。Ctrip asked that the big model still needs a long iteration.。Ctrip will spare no effort in this regard。"

In Q2's quarterly report, you can also see Ctrip's continued investment in R & D.。In the second quarter, Ctrip's product research and development expenses were 3 billion yuan, up 67% year-on-year and 10% month-on-month.。The company's product research and development expenses accounted for 26% of net operating income in the second quarter.。