$15.1 billion in R&D and $2.9 billion in service assurance investment—Ctrip solidifies long-term value through technology and service in 2025

As AI moves from general capabilities to specialized tourism scenarios and cross-border mobility shifts from policy recovery to service-driven growth, the core competitiveness of online travel platforms is increasingly focused on transaction efficiency and global supply integration.

On February 26, Ctrip Group (09961.HK) announced its unaudited financial results for Q4 and the full year of 2025. The financial report shows that in 2025, Ctrip’s core OTA business achieved a transaction volume of 1.1 trillion yuan, with group net revenue of 62.4 billion yuan, and net profit of 13.4 billion yuan after excluding investment income, with a net profit margin of about 1% of transaction volume.

Ctrip demonstrates the dual benefits of tourism industry recovery and platform upgrades through solid operational quality, also confirming its core value in industry chain integration.

Enhancing inbound tourism: Building a new global service ecosystem for Chinese cultural tourism

Amid the ongoing recovery of cross-border tourism and China’s cultural tourism going global, inbound tourism has become a strong growth engine for Ctrip throughout the year. The financial report shows that in 2025, international OTA platform bookings increased by approximately 60% year-over-year, serving about 20 million inbound travelers.

For the tourism industry, inbound tourism carries the mission of cultural dissemination and the responsibility of upgrading experiential consumption.

Recently, the “Guangdong Year Flavor World Sharing” event was grandly launched in Shantou, where hundreds of foreign guests experienced long-table New Year banquets and intangible cultural heritage techniques, vividly conveying the concept of “a New Year’s Eve dinner, shared worldwide,” making traditional culture a trending topic on international social media.

“I knew nothing about Guangdong before; I didn’t realize there are so many rich and interesting experiences here,” said Stephanie, a German blogger visiting Shantou for the first time to experience Chinese New Year. “In Germany, we celebrate New Year for only one day, but here, New Year activities last a full month, and the atmosphere is very different. There are also many delicious foods.” He praised the abundant and diverse New Year dishes in Shantou. Ahmed Elseny from Egypt also fondly remembered Shantou beef meatballs and planned to buy some to share with family and friends.

In 2025, Ctrip plans to invest an average of 1 billion yuan annually to help over 40 cities nationwide increase inbound tourist reception through overseas platforms. Leveraging Trip.com’s global customer acquisition network and marketing capabilities, the platform opens up new inbound tourism opportunities for domestic travel suppliers. The platform’s empowerment effect is significant, with nearly 70,000 hotels, attractions, and travel agencies receiving inbound tourism orders from Ctrip’s overseas platforms for the first time.

On the product supply side, Ctrip has enabled over 6,000 scenic spots to open to international markets for the first time, adding 63,000 foreign-bookable ticket types, with 95% of major domestic attractions supporting foreign reservations. Hotel performance is equally impressive, with over 60,000 hotels receiving inbound tourism orders, and nearly 10,000 hotels’ inbound overnight stays accounting for 10% of their total.

To meet the deep experience needs of inbound tourists, Ctrip has broken out of the traditional “ticketing + accommodation” service framework to build a comprehensive inbound service system. In response to demand for immersive experiences, the platform has added more than 2,800 multi-language day-tour products and over 2,000 foreign language guided tour products, with related revenue increasing by 140% year-over-year, precisely matching overseas tourists’ desire for in-depth Chinese cultural experiences.

Ctrip also enhances cultural touchpoints through offline physical innovations. The immersive restaurant “TASTE OF CHINA” has hosted over 4,300 visitors from 32 countries and regions, with a 90% positive feedback rate, becoming the “first contact” for overseas visitors to experience Chinese cuisine. The global tax refund map covers more than 3,400 merchants, continuously reducing friction in inbound consumption and further unlocking inbound spending potential.

Ctrip CEO Sun Jie stated that inbound tourism remains a key growth driver for economic development and creates employment opportunities for young talents and industry partners.

Over the past year, Ctrip has served approximately 20 million inbound travelers and effectively connected inbound demand with about 150,000 hotel resources through its platform. It also launched customized inbound tourism products, over 90% of which are high-star-rated, enhancing overall traveler experience.

Service system upgrade: 2.9 billion yuan investment to build a trust foundation

In the increasingly competitive cultural tourism industry, shifting from “scale expansion” to “efficiency improvement,” service quality has become the core for platforms to retain users and build long-term trust.

To strengthen long-term trust with users, Ctrip invested approximately 2.9 billion yuan in 2025 on user benefits and care initiatives, continuously optimizing service processes and response efficiency, and building a global service guarantee network to further solidify user trust.

In 2025, Ctrip handled 350 million inquiries across more than 200 countries and regions, with non-Chinese language services increasing by 72%. 89% of inquiries were answered within 20 seconds, 90% of issues resolved within 20 minutes, and satisfaction in complex human-machine collaboration scenarios reached 92%, effectively reducing user inquiry costs and improving service experience.

Addressing safety concerns in cross-border travel, Ctrip’s “Global Travel SOS Platform” has been upgraded, connecting with 27 global medical aid organizations and over 1 million medical partners, covering 20 types of travel emergencies. By the end of 2025, the platform received over 23,000 help cases from more than 100 destinations worldwide, with an overall rescue success rate of 98%, providing comprehensive safety support for cross-border travelers and further enhancing the platform’s global competitiveness.

Behind this, continuous technological investment remains a key driver of the platform’s core competitiveness.

To address long-standing industry pain points such as language barriers, information asymmetry, and complex itinerary planning, Ctrip has achieved breakthroughs with AI technology. In 2025, R&D investment reached 15.1 billion yuan, a 15% increase year-over-year, accounting for 24% of net revenue, including large-scale AI technology investments, making it one of the highest in the tourism industry, driving global service capability upgrades through technology.

Among these, the self-developed AI translation engine “Smart Translation Future” produces 6 billion words annually, covering 25 core languages, effectively reducing global operational costs and allowing travelers worldwide to enjoy Chinese flight, hotel, and entertainment services in their native language. AI-powered itinerary products recommend and connect routes efficiently based on user orders, greatly reducing inbound travelers’ and domestic users’ planning costs, leading to a 400% year-over-year increase in inbound tour products and boosting global operational efficiency.

Recreating domestic demand value: activating consumption and employment through product innovation

To stimulate domestic tourism demand, Ctrip has abandoned traditional traffic-driven models, instead focusing on product innovation and supply-side restructuring to unlock new consumption potential.

In 2025, Ctrip successfully created a tourism consumption increment exceeding 100 billion yuan and generated 50,000 new jobs, achieving a dual boost of corporate growth and social value, becoming an important force in driving domestic cultural tourism consumption.

The hotel sector’s innovation focuses on “stock potential and incremental quality.” To address homogeneity competition and insufficient incremental revenue, Ctrip’s calendar room packages combine accommodation with local experiences and value-added services, opening new revenue streams for partner hotels.

By the end of 2025, calendar room packages covered 17,000 domestic hotels, generating an additional 3 billion yuan in revenue for partners, especially helping second- and third-tier cities and sinking markets break free from “price competition,” establishing a more stable income structure. Additionally, the attractions and entertainment sector invested in over 130 projects through a co-creation model with scenic spots, contributing over 100 million yuan in revenue.

As residents’ travel consumption shifts from “check-in tourism” to “personalized experiences,” Ctrip is adjusting its product structure accordingly.

In 2025, revenue from “small group” independent travel products grew over 20% year-over-year, with per capita spending increasing by more than 80%, satisfying users’ needs for privacy and personalization while also expanding related employment. Over 20,000 new tour guides were added nationwide, with roles shifting from traditional group leaders to in-depth guides, local service providers, and customized experience providers, with professional skills and income levels rising in tandem.

The empowerment of small and medium-sized travel agencies also highlights the platform’s ecosystem value. About 3,500 SMEs received customized private group services from Ctrip, generating an additional transaction volume of 11 billion yuan, further expanding local tourism participation and sharing the growth benefits across more market players.

Meanwhile, Ctrip’s outbound corporate travel services are expanding, becoming a key support for enterprise globalization. In 2025, Ctrip served over 28,000 Chinese companies going abroad, including about 25,000 SMEs involved in cross-border business activities. Through integrated platform solutions, Ctrip helped over 440,000 international professionals access 206 countries and regions and more than 13,000 cities, optimizing costs, enhancing compliance, and improving traveler safety.

Over the past year, from traffic matching to supply restructuring, from language integration to rule standardization, from user service to industry empowerment, Ctrip has evolved from a traditional OTA into an efficiency organizer and value distributor for cross-border travel.

Ctrip Chairman Liang Jianzhang stated: “Travel is not just an industry but a key infrastructure that promotes connection, accelerates movement, and enables shared growth. Inbound tourism is a vital force for expanding opportunities and supporting local community development. Through continuous investment in inbound tourism, social responsibility, and AI innovation, we are laying a solid foundation for sustainable long-term development.”