Businessweek

Ctrip.com International, Ltd. provides hotel accommodations, airline tickets, packaged tours and corporate travel management services in China. The company develops reservation and fulfillment infrastructure that enables its customers to: choose and reserve hotel rooms in cities throughout China and abroad; book and purchase air tickets for domestic and international flights; and choose and reserve packaged tours that include transportation and accommodations, as well as guided tours and other value-added services in some instances. The company targets its services primarily at business and leisure travelers in China who do not travel in groups. The company’s customers can make flight reservations on their chosen routes and arranges ticket payment and delivery through its ticketing offices and third-party agencies located in approximately 70 cities in China. The company offers its services to customers through an advanced transaction and service platform consisting of its centralized, 24-hour customer service centers, multi-lingual Websites and mobile platform. Products and Services Hotel Reservations: The company acts as an agent in substantially all of its hotel-related transactions. The company’s customers receive confirmed bookings and pay the hotels directly upon completion of their stays. For other hotels, the company has commission arrangements that the company refers to as the ‘ratchet system,’ whereby its commission rate per room night is adjusted upward with the increase in the volume of room nights the company sells for such hotel during such month. The company contracts with hotels for rooms under two agency models, the ‘guaranteed allotment’ model and the ‘on-request’ model. As of December 31, 2012, the company had contracted with approximately 49,000 hotels in China, of which a majority have guaranteed room allotments, allowing the company to sell rooms to its customers even during peak seasons and provide instant confirmation. Air-ticketing: The company sells air tickets as an agent for all major domestic Chinese airlines, such as Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines and international airlines operating flights that originate from cities in China, such as Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, American Airlines, Lufthansa, Emirates Airlines, Qantas Airways, Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines. The company also provides other related service to its customers, such as sales of aviation insurance and air-ticket delivery services. Packaged tour: The company also offers independent leisure travelers bundled packaged-tour products, including group tours, semi-group tours and private tours or packaged tours with different transportation arrangements, such as cruise, bus and self-driving. The company provides integrated transportation and accommodations services and offers various value-added services including car rental, insurance, visa services, tour guides, transportation at destinations and tickets. The company offers customers one-stop services to meet their booking and traveling needs. Corporate Travel: The company provides air ticket booking, hotel reservation and packaged-tour services to its corporate clients to help them plan business travels in a cost-efficient way. In addition, the company also provides its corporate clients with travel data collection and analysis, industry benchmark, cost saving analysis and travel management solutions. The company has independently developed the Corporate Travel Management Systems, which is a comprehensive online platform integrating information maintenance, online booking, online authorization, online enquiry and travel report system. Other Products and Services: The company’s other products and services include the sale of Property Management System or PMS, and related maintenance service. It also offers advertising services, which principally represent the sale of banner advertisements or sponsorship on its Websites. Intellectual Property The company’s intellectual property rights include trademarks and domain names associated with the name ‘Ctrip’ and copyright and other rights associated with its Websites, technology platform, booking software and other aspects of its business. The company’s major domain names are www.ctrip.com and www.gotochina.com. They have been registered with www.register.com and www.opensrs.net, respectively, and the domain name www.ctrip.com.cn with China Internet Network Information Center, a domain name registration service in China, and have full legal rights over these domain names. The company conducts its business under the Ctrip brand name and logo. Competition In the hotel consolidation market, the company competes primarily with other consolidators of hotel accommodations, such as eLong, Inc., which is controlled by Expedia, Inc., which owns several online travel businesses, including Expedia.com, Hotels.com and Hotwire.com. The company also competes with traditional travel agencies and new Internet travel search Websites and service provider platforms, such as Qunar.com and Taobao.com. In the air-ticketing market, the company competes primarily with other consolidators of air tickets with a multi-province airline ticket sales and fulfillment infrastructure in China, including eLong, Inc. and Mangocity.com. History Ctrip.com International, Ltd. was founded in 1999.