Chinese online travel giant Trip.com was one of the first in the global tourism industry to be hit when the coronavirus outbreak began in China in late January. The booming Chinese outbound travel market soon came to a screeching halt as millions of Chinese hunkered down and countries imposed entry restrictions on travelers from China.
More than two months after the global pandemic ripped through the global economy, some glimmer of hope is now emerging from China as the country gradually returns to normality.
Jane Sun, CEO of Trip.com Group said the most difficult challenging issue during the coronavirus outbreak falls into two stages. The first wave came when the virus was really severe in China. There were lots of cancellations, it had to work day and night to handle a 20-times volume increase in cancellations from customers as well as changes and delays of trips.
While the second way is right now. The virus is well under control in China, so Trip.com Group needs to boost the confidence of the consumer and come up with very creative products so that consumers can resume confidence in travel and boost the recovery of domestic business.
The rest of the world goes into lockdown even as China is opening up again. Trip.com Group is seeing signs of recovery now from the domestic market in China. Sun said Ctrip is among the first couple of companies to return to work and many companies are now fully in operation. "There are products for parents to bring their family for relaxation on the weekend. After being locked down for two months a lot of people would like to travel but we need to do it in a very safe and methodical way."
As for support to travel partners in overseas countries, Sun said the group has already started surveying the partners and suppliers and what they really needed was cash flow from customers. "Through our online initiative for the Tourism Recovery V plan, with V standing for victory, we got very good deals for the attractions, hotels and travel suppliers that customers would be able to prepay for. "
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