Tuesday 21 March 2017

Is Ctrip already the Expedia or Priceline of China?

Ctrip’s recent acquisition of Skyscanner sent waves through the travel industry and marked another big deal by a Chinese firm investing in leisure and hospitality outside the country. It was also a demonstration of the ambition of Ctrip, which has grown dramatically over the last few years, also acquiring metasearch company Qunar in 2015.  

The figures suggest that this is already an Online Travel Agent (OTA) giant just on the basis of Chinese sales, let alone its ambitions further afield. One estimate from 2015 projected that
the company already oversaw 70-80% of the country’s OTA market and another from that same year reckoned that Qunar controlled around 32% of air ticket sales and Ctrip 39% of hotel bookings.

EyeforTravel has also found that Chinese consumers are heavily mobile- and OTA-focused when it comes to researching and buying travel, giving a further advantage to Ctrip. It seems that the rest of the world might need to look out.

Keep an eye out for our upcoming Chinese Travel Consumer report, which is coming soon.

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Alex Hadwick
Head of Research, EyeforTravel
alex@eyefortravel.com 

Source: Bloomberg