Travel Megatrends 2018: Ctrip Branches Out as Rivals Focus on Domestic Growth
Photo Credit: The government in China wants Chinese companies to keep their money in the country. Even companies that want to grow internationally find it much easier to focus on the domestic market. Skift / Bett Norris
Skift Take
The global travel industry wonders when Chinese companies and investors will play a bigger role. Restrictions on foreign investment are getting tighter. On the other hand, maybe they’re just not that into us.
Skift Megatrends 2018
In January 2018 released our annual travel industry trends forecast, Skift Megatrends 2018. You can read about each of the trends on Skift, or download a copy of our magazine here.
Did you pay for your last latte using Alipay? Was your most recent vacation booked on Ctrip? Are travelers able to rent your spare bedroom via Tujia? Unless you’re Chinese, the answer is probably no, and that’s not an answer that looks likely to change anytime soon. And most of those companies don’t really care.
The exception may be Ctrip, which bought the Scotland-based flight-search business Skyscanner in 2016. To boost Skyscanner’s local and travel content, Ctrip in late 2017 tacked on U.S.-headquartered Trip.com and London-based Twizoo, which aggregates reviews from social media. Ctrip followed up those deals by converting the Trip.com domain into an English-language version of the Chinese travel site.
During China’s October Golden Week, which in 2017 lasted eight days, an estimated 700 million Chinese — more than half of the nation’s population — traveled somewhere. And more than 100 million of them ventured outside the country. But why aren’t China’s maj
