Battle of tour operators in China – old versus new, who will triumph?

Battle of tour operators in China – old versus new, who will triumph?
Hear from Utour Group, IPP Travel Group, CYTS and Tempus Tour Group at the 2017 TravelDaily Conference, to be held in Shanghai (Sep 13-14).

Established online travel players in China continue to target new areas of expansion and this includes foray into the packaged tour segment via an offline presence.
In case of Ctrip, in conjunction with Traveling Bestone, the OTA is targeting customers based in second-tier and third-tier cities. Late last year Ctrip chose to acquire a controlling stake in Traveling Bestone, an organization with over 5,500 offline franchise stores in 23 provinces and municipalities across the country. Ctrip’s packaged-tour revenue in Q1 rose by 26% increase over the same period last year, due to an increase in volume growth of organized tours and self-guided tours.
Jane Jie Sun, Ctrip’s CEO, during the company’s Q1 earnings call in May, mentioned: “These stores are generating healthy profits.” She added, “We plan to open 1,000 more off-line franchise stores nationwide. In 2017, our packaged tour team will invest further in procurement, distribution, product development and service innovation.”
This means the existing operators need to gear up for this aggressive plan by Ctrip, even though they themselves have been buoyed by China’s growing outbound travel demand and rising tourism expenditure.
Outbound tour operator Utour Group’s operating revenue was up by 21% to RMB 10.1 billion last year.
HNA Group’s HNA-Caissa Travel Group also witnessed their operating revenue going up by 34% to RMB 6.64 billion in 2016.
Considering that Utour and Caissa are also investing in online platforms to improve their customer acquisition, an intriguing battle is shaping up in this segment.
So will OTAs’ foray into offline business be a game changer for the sector?
What kind of transformation will this online-offline integration bring about?
A session featuring top players in this segment is scheduled to take place at the upcoming 2017 TravelDaily Conference, to be held in Shanghai (Sep 13-14).

Speaker:
● Bin Feng, Chairman, Utour Group
● Ivan Huang, President, IPP Travel Group
● Hellen Luo, CEO, CYTS
● Jin Shi, President, Tempus Tour Group

Moderated by:
● Dongjie Guo, Chairman and CEO, Huayuan International Travel
The two-day TravelDaily Conference is a must-attend annual event for anyone associated with the travel industry in China.
The 2017 TravelDaily Conference is conducted in both English and Chinese – simultaneous interpretation is available.
Early-bird pricing expires Aug.16 (save $100 off the regular registration price of $980).

Sep.13-14, 2017
The Yuluxe Sheshan
Shanghai, China

Contact:
Registration Inquiries: Rain Wang
Tel: +86 20 2882 9750 • register@traveldaily.cn

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