Ctrip (携程)

Overview

Ctrip (携程) is the original brand of Trip.com Group, founded in Shanghai in 1999 by James Liang, Neil Shen, Min Fan and Qi Ji. It grew into the dominant online travel agency in mainland China and remains the group's flagship brand for the domestic Chinese market, complementing the international Trip.com brand.

Business Model

Ctrip operates a full-service OTA model covering air ticketing, hotel reservations, train and bus tickets, packaged tours, business travel management, attractions, cruises and travel insurance. It runs both agency and merchant models, supports a vast offline call-center operation alongside its app and web channels, and serves both leisure and corporate customers at scale.

Market Position

Ctrip is the largest OTA in mainland China, serving hundreds of millions of registered users. Its dominance is built on years of acquisitions of competitors (including Qunar and eLong), exclusive supply relationships with Chinese hotel chains and airlines, and deep integration with the Chinese payments ecosystem.

Key Facts

Ctrip is one of the most influential travel companies in Asia, frequently a thought leader on Chinese outbound travel trends. The group has invested heavily in AI, with the TripGenie assistant and large-scale machine learning powering recommendations, dynamic packaging and customer support.