Alibaba’s Travel Chief on How Mobile Booking and Billing Is Redefining Chinese Travel
Photo Credit: Alitrip chief strategy officer Sherri Wu speaks at the company's Attracting China's 1.3 Billion Travelers conference in Los Angeles. Alibaba Group
Skift Take
More Chinese travelers than ever before are traveling to the U.S. and Alitrip is looking to provide custom, mobile-booked itineraries through its relationship with North American hotels, airlines and tour operators. It helps that its parent company is the preeminent Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, giving them near-unlimited resources to compete in a crowded Chinese travel market.
Chinese travel to the U.S. is set to skyrocket, due to more lenient visa regulations and increased spending from a growing Chinese middle-class that is excited to visit America.
Alibaba Group's travel division Alitrip looked to attract partnerships from U.S. tour operators, destinations and travel service providers at a conference Monday in Los Angeles espousing the business opportunity of increased Chinese travel to the U.S.
More than five million Chinese travelers will visit the U.S. in the year 2020, up from 2.6 million in 2015, according to U.S. Travel Association CEO Roger Dow, who spoke at the event.
Sherri Wu, Alitrip's chief strategy officer, said that building partnerships with industry giants like Marriott International, Starwood Hotels and Resorts and InterContinental Hotels Group has let the company capitalize on the increasing number of Chinese travelers looking to travel to the U.S. A deal with AmericanTours International, a major domestic tour operator in th
