Articles tagged “ctrip”

While it's interesting to note Skyscanner's growth in hotels and car hire, commission from flight searches is still the source of most of its revenue. It seems likely that the company will look to take a bigger slice of the airline market rather than push too hard into other areas.

TripAdvisor has potential to become more than a hotel booking engine, but it needs to get hotels humming and profitable to give management additional runway to fulfill that vision.

Zhou's comments point to more deals for companies outside China, similar to the one for Skyscanner, and with plenty of money to spend it looks like it could be a very busy few years.

China's largest online travel company says that it has changed its practices for upselling customers to comply with a consumer watchdog's request. The hiccup shouldn't knock Ctrip off its growth stride.

Skyscanner is becoming an online shop-window for airlines, providing a branded experience that's similar to the airline's own sites. Behind this move is a technological upheaval that's scrambling commercial alliances.

To a great extent, Ctrip is going to be preoccupied for years chasing Chinese travelers and servicing their every travel need, around the globe. Barring further consolidation, Ctrip isn't much of a threat to its partner, the Priceline Group, which is years ahead in its own hotel business and is executing superbly.

Expedia got a lot of buzz for its 2015 buying binge, but over the last two years China's Ctrip has been on an equal footing with Expedia in terms of acquisition activity. At the same time, TripAdvisor is stockpiling dining-related sites, having bought five and invested in two others.

As we've noted before, a lot of industry professionals argue that metasearch and online travel agencies will converge. Skyscanner's new way of selling Finnair's fare families may be a sign of trends to come.

After making a string of investments, Ctrip may be keeping its gunpowder dry in 2017 — at least according to our interpretation of the latest comments of its executives. That will give it a chance to digest its recent acquisition of Skyscanner and to deepen its hotel coverage within China.

Expedia's CEO says his company has momentum moving into 2017, although we heard him express similar sentiments over the last two quarters and any surge wasn't particularly noticeable. This will likely be another transition year as Expedia's HomeAway gets more digital and Trivago feels its oats as a public company.