By Tang Guhan
China's leading online travel agency Ctrip.com yesterday released its first-quarter financial report, showing an astonishing 19 times year-on-year increase in its net profits.
International flight tickets and hotels contributed to the surge in earnings for the first quarter. The earnings from international airline tickets accounted for more than 40 percent of its total flight tickets while abroad-to-abroad plane tickets' income accounted for over 30 percent in international flight tickets for the first quarter.
The outbound tourists numbered up to 130 million in 2017 with an aggregated expense of 115.29 billion dollars, as reported by the China Tourism Academy. It was predicted that the figure would escalate to 700 million people within the next five years, which provides enormous business opportunities for online travel agencies (OTA).
Different from his previous speech emphasizing the significance of financial performance, Liang Jianzhang, the co-founder of Ctrip.com emphasized its focus on customers' interests on a telephone call regarding the company's first-quarter financial report yesterday. Liang noted the four principles for the operation of the company: they are transparency, optionality, coherence, and justice. All services contents, prices, and cancellation policies should be clearly demonstrated. Furthermore, Liang vowed to lower the probability for clients making unmatched choices by leveraging AI technologies.
"We aim to become the most valuable brand for travel services across the country and the world," said Liang.
According to Ctrip's global strategy, inbound travelling will be another focus for the company to develop in the future. Ctrip aims to appeal more and more foreign tourists to come to China.
In accordance with the Belt and Road Initiative, added with the expansion in infrastructure, inbound travelling will gain more market shares in the future.
"We have just touched the tip of the iceberg for our target markets, and Ctrip will continue to benefit from the national and overseas tourism growth," said Sun Jie, the CEO of Ctrip.
