Trip.com Group Scraps Pricing Tool and Tier Programs After Antitrust Ruling, Confirms Hit to Results

The first concrete financial signal of China's record antitrust penalty has arrived: Trip.com Group told investors that dismantling the commercial machinery at the center of the case is already weighing on its results.

Speaking on an investor call Monday, held after the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued its ruling, CEO Jane Sun and CFO Xiaofan Wang said the company has eliminated its automated price-tracking and price-matching tool and is scrapping its Tier 1 and Tier 2 delegated distribution programs — the commercial arrangements that governed how hotels distributed inventory and prices across the platform.

In their place, executives described a new "multi-tier partnership framework" designed to offer greater flexibility, transparency and shared growth for hotel partners.

Pricing tool was shut down in March

Notably, the automated pricing tool was switched off back in March — months before SAMR announced its ¥5.18 billion penalty — and the company confirmed on the call that the shutdown is already impacting financial performance.

That detail matters for anyone modeling the second half of the year. The tool monitored hotel rates across the internet and enforced price parity, and its removal means Trip.com Group can no longer guarantee it holds the lowest visible price on its own platform. The Tier 1 and Tier 2 delegated distribution programs being wound down are the same "special-tier" and "gold-tier" arrangements that regulators found forced hotels into exclusivity and lowest-price commitments in exchange for traffic.

What comes next

The changes flow from the 19 rectification measures the company committed to after the penalty, which include ending exclusive cooperation arrangements and unreasonable lowest-price requirements. Details of how the replacement framework will set commissions and traffic allocation remain unspecified.

The strategic question now shifts from compliance to execution: whether Trip.com Group can retain hotel supply, sustain growth and defend its domestic market position without the enforcement tools regulators ruled crossed the line. Investors get their first full look at the numbers when the company reports quarterly results.