Ctrip highlighted the importance of South East Asia and the potential of the region to become a hotspot for China’s rapidly growing outbound travel market at the 10th Annual Travel Trade Show ITB Asia. Some 46% of the 6 million Chinese outbound travelers chose South East Asia as their holiday destination during China's Golden Week national holiday in October 2017.
Though only 7% of the Chinese citizens own a passport, Ctrip expects this amount to rise in the near future. According to Ctrip’s data for flights and hotel bookings, the most popular destinations in South East Asia were Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Overall, China’s outbound travelers are expected to reach the 200 million mark in 2020, up from 122 million in 2016.
China’s domestic market is also growing in line with travelers’ spending power. First-tier cities such as Shanghai and Beijing are seeing the average traveler spending well over 1400 USD per head.
To meet the needs of both domestic and outbound travelers, Ctrip’s strengths in AI, big data and intelligent hardware are crucial advantages in providing a superior travel experience.
Whether through VR technology that allows users to select their hotel rooms online, check-in via facial recognition technology, or features such as “Smart Home” and “Smart Keys”, Ctrip customers enjoy an unprecedented level of customization and convenience throughout their travels.
Ctrip leverages the 50TB of data generated daily by its 300 million users to analyze and understand demographics, customer demands and travel behavior. As the first OTA to use machine learning to forecast travel trends, Ctrip’s has the capacity to study the buying behavior of customers on both Ctrip and third-party platforms.
Intelligent computing allows customers to enjoy continual service improvements, personalized recommendations and an overall optimization of travel resources.
