Online tourism is undergoing profound changes, Ctrip must follow the industry trends

The online tourism industry is undergoing profound changes, Ctrip must keep up with the user experience of innovative industry trends, the courage to deny themselves, in order to continue to maintain commercial advancement.

In 2011, China's Internet arena, Ctrip and Taobao together, became frustrated by the "leading brother."

Ctrip in the 3rd quarter of 2011 net revenue of 153 million U.S. dollars, year-on-year growth of 4 consecutive quarterly decline. In the middle of November 2011, Ctrip's share price fell 25% in the week, and its share price in early 2012 fell by nearly half from the top of the 50 dollar last year. And the situation seems to be over. Ctrip's CFO, Sun, predicted in a conference call last November 13 that Ctrip's operating margin of 2011-year seasons would drop to 35%. The figure was 41% in the three quarter and 45% in the same period a year earlier.

At the beginning of 2010, the 10 anniversary of the establishment of Ctrip, Ctrip management spirited to play the "Ctrip Second Journey" banner. However, at the beginning of the second journey, Ctrip encountered challenges from many aspects.

In these challenges, airlines and express hotels have built their own sales channels is old news. And Baidu, Tencent and other internet giants and mobile terminals of the new channel siege, become the current troubled Ctrip's biggest annoyance.

Tencent invested in the Art Dragon last May, where Baidu made a huge investment in $306 million trillion last June. Art Dragon in recent years outstanding performance, where to go from the vertical search platform to the quasi-Ota mode (online travel agents) of the purchase business, Ctrip has created a direct competitive pressure. Tencent's huge user base and Baidu's search technology, the traditional business of Ctrip model of the threat is still unpredictable.

The more important challenge comes from the mobile internet that broke out in 2011. From the second half of last year, the app power, represented by "hotel talent" and "Tonight's hotel Specials", suddenly appeared on mobile terminals. This type of channel attached to mobile terminals, with a refreshing user experience quickly circled a large number of Ctrip users.

Sun in the analysis of earnings, Ctrip operating profit margin is one of the main reasons for the increase in marketing costs, that is, including group purchase items, China hotel booking business intensified competition and other factors this is clearly refers to the mobile terminal suddenly appeared on the rising stars. And more crucially, mobile application of a new user experience form, is the beginning of the "Mouse + cement" gene is not good at Ctrip. In recent years, Ctrip has focused on changing its assets, ignoring the user experience, a new concept that suddenly emerges from the mobile internet and has a significant impact on the business.

There are many signs that China's online tourism industry is in a tumultuous period of adjustment. In fact, the internet has a "leading 35 years" of the remarkable law, and Ctrip in this field to dominate the decade, has been rare.

The huge body of carrying thread standing at a crossroads, whether it can survive this time, will depend on its own choice.

Ctrip's Tangle

If the competition from the Old enemy art Dragon and where to go is a positive battlefield than price, the line of resources, then mobile developers are directly into Ctrip's backyard. Although the former two companies have Baidu, Tencent, the admission of the Giants, but the two firms do not have any direct experience of online tourism business, they give the art dragon and where to bring the superposition advantage, in a short period of time can not be cashed. And the latter is different, the app through the PC has never had a user experience, direct lap of Ctrip is not very high users.

February 2011, "Hotel Talent" in the major Android App store online, its gorgeous visual effects and rich interactive experience quickly get a huge amount of downloads. After receiving positive feedback, the app is ported to iOS platforms. Chen Junjie, founder of Hotel talent, revealed to business value that the app's cumulative download at the end of 2011 was over 1 million. In the October, "hotel talent" for its outstanding potential to obtain the investment of innovative workshops.

In fact, with the prosperity of Ctrip quite different, "hotel talent" The birth process is simple and rapid. Chen Jun in China Merchants Bank (600036, shares bar) of the Travel business unit work, has a relatively rich experience in online tourism. While another founder of technology, Liu Changbo, was studying in Canada, his major was the user experience. The latter has been involved in mobile application development since 2007, then encountered Chen Jun, who is planning to start a business. Parent company In addition to the "Hotel talent", but also developed a "video of the Talent" and "the people of the taxi" Two of Life information service clients, and the shift-flower interaction only 20 several employees.

At the end of September last year, the "Tonight Hotel Specials" is another to make Ctrip uneasy application, it in the App Store in China on the second day of the launch of the second to the Free Application list, and then happened about whether Ctrip blocked the application of the saliva battle. In fact, the tension in Ctrip is reasonable, because "Tonight hotel Specials" is not only an interactive excellent app, its copy of the United States Priceline's Last-minute booking business model, directly touch the offline industry chain, and its low price slogan for Ctrip is a great threat.

In the "Tonight Hotel Specials" co-founder, COO Jinxin, this way of selling tail goods is essentially the hotel's real-time group purchase. It's just a limited-hours mission. Its characteristic is that only buy the night of the room, will only affect the day price, and require customers to complete the payment on the phone. Therefore, Jinxin that, even if the hotel side and their cooperation, there is no violation of the hotel and Ctrip signed the "front pay, to ctrip the lowest price" agreement.

The "Tonight Hotel Specials" team, like the "Hotel talent" team, received a more than 600,000 significant download at the end of 2011 with low start-up costs and a smaller team size. The company's two founders, CEO Dengtianzho and COO Jinxin, were employed in the early days of the Internet electric Dealer's new Egg network. Jinxin on the eve of the venture in 2011, a short term in Groupon China as vice president of the market.

Have a wealth of market experience Jinxin, "Tonight Hotel special" business spread out, quickly unite Ctrip a bunch of "old friends" Huitong World and Jinjiang hotel and other forces, to carry out the breakthrough.

Positive battlefield opponents of the chain, together with the backyard of a group of mobile application developers, so that Ctrip 2011 years rush.

In fact, Ctrip in the field of mobile internet submunitions is not too early. Its mobile-based app was online in October 2010, and Ding to the Economist that it had already had 6 million significant users by the end of 2011 and had also made several upgrades in 2011 and launched the ipad version.

However, it is undeniable that Ctrip's app is only a Web page transplant for a long time, and does not make full use of the human-computer interaction characteristics of mobile terminals for user experience innovation. "This may be related to the leadership style of the Ctrip manager," Chen Jun said to the Economist, "The 7-day Hotel client experience is good, which is related to CEO Zheng's IT people." ”

In fact, although the layout of the mobile strategy earlier, but Ctrip did not devote enough effort in this area, even in 2011 Ctrip did not have an independent development of the Mobile Strategy department. So, Ctrip in the mobile field early to lay the stakes but not tamping, this gives the Up-and-comer to opportunity.

The lack of user experience based on interaction is one of Ctrip's Achilles ' heel, but it's not the whole truth. In fact, Ctrip is facing a greater crisis from the industry's genes. Whether it is Ctrip, art dragon or Chain home, Zhaopin and other companies in the Internet era, their common characteristics are "mouse + cement", that is, the traditional Internet Information broker. Their business model is based on asymmetric information.

However, the popularity of intelligent terminals and the arrival of mobile internet tide, to a large extent, to break the information brokers rely on the existence of asymmetric information situation. Science and technology changed business, the objective of mobile terminals from time and space to liberate the flow of information.

So it is not difficult to understand, if not more than the industry chain, then there is no doubt that the efficiency of the app is much higher than the traditional online business Ctrip.

However, Ctrip's entanglement lies in the fact that even if you are aware of your limitations, it is impossible to turn around quickly. This is because, on the one hand, Ctrip in the assets of the road there are many pieces are not finished cloth. Ctrip to maintain the supremacy of 10 years the important reason is that it is the first to realize the "mouse + cement" model of the unsustainable and its own assets to become heavier. We can see that, especially after 2008 years, Ctrip to buy travel agencies, do the project, building the country's largest call center, these layouts for its brutal competition in the competition has won a huge advantage.

In recent years, the business of the Dragon has repeatedly created success, to where the network aggressive background, Ctrip apparently think that they have not yet opened enough competition with the opponent gap. In fact, although Ctrip 2011 years a little embarrassed, but it landed in this year a lot of heavy asset projects. For example, last April 21, Ctrip announced that its hotel reviews business split independent operation, set up a professional hotel reviews website "Donkey Rating Network", and moved out of Ctrip headquarters office. This means that Ctrip has entered the hotel advertising business. It has launched a hotel group buying, investment order small Secretary, the opening of food booking channel, high-speed rail channel, and the opening of direct Hawaiian flights to the east, the start of small and medium-sized business travel, and even launched an insurance agency. If you calculate on the Yong ' an tourism and easy to travel network, Ctrip is already a make the second can not be a Big Mac.

On the other hand, as Ctrip senior vice president Mr. To "business value" Frankly, Ctrip's former brand image is a business fan-like stable information broker. Mobile apps are a dazzling human-computer interaction and social experience. This style obviously makes the conservative ctrip difficult to accept in a short time.

And many app developers are seeing this gap to quickly plug into the market. Jinxin to business value, saying he admits that he cannot get a lower daily hotel price than Ctrip, and that the previous attempts to poach Cheng to grab resources will not work. However, self-proclaimed "mobile interconnection + E-commerce" thinking of his bet on the two points: first, is the popularity of mobile terminals and buy the upsurge, changed the user's consumption habits; second, Ctrip is unwilling to put a lot of energy into the mobile terminal user experience development.

The possibility of Ctrip

Realistically speaking, the impact of the app on the actual business of Ctrip is very small. Ctrip's current main competitor is still the art dragon and where to go. Moreover, it is quite possible that the road that Ctrip has taken is impossible for any enterprise to surpass it. However, the winners and losers, the end of the dominant status of Ctrip, it is probably not the art dragon, where to go or the cattle and other competitors, but the new mobile app.

Ctrip is now the biggest advantage of the 10 between the accumulated customer database and brand awareness. But in the 10 years, apart from the feedback of the points, the two are basically irrelevant to the "user experience". Ctrip's mouse side does not have a product level user experience, and cement end will encounter the ceiling sooner or later. But mobile terminals are the user experience of the natural platform, they have the ability to a very low cost of ctrip to accumulate the user to take away.

For a long time in 2011, Ctrip did not have a keen sense of the industry's movements. It is easy to open a door, let an up-and-comer casually in their own turf toss. This gives people the expectation is negative, Ctrip's share price lower I am afraid also reflects this point.

If the vision of the entire business history to see, Yahoo, Kodak, Sony and other companies are too much believe in their own business resources, in not thinking of the progressive or helpless waiting to lose the advanced nature of the enterprise. Mobile Internet start-up threshold is very low, a lot of people with electrical business experience to summon technical team can quickly develop in one months to make Ctrip "uncomfortable" products. Quantitative changes will eventually lead to qualitative changes, until the overall subversion.

While it is impossible to expect Big Mac Ctrip to be able to transform itself into a platform-like company right away, it is not too late to mend if its management is really aware of the seriousness of the problem. After all, big companies have a very big advantage. In the Mobile Internet field, Tencent after the understanding, with micro-letter coverage of the rice chat and Talkbox is a good example.

In fact, we've actually seen the clues from Ctrip.

After the third quarter, Ctrip CFO Sun revealed that Ctrip's total revenue, equivalent to 8%-10% 's hotel reservation business, was used to promote the competition in the Online hotel reservation field and squeeze in the space of competitors such as online travel agencies and group buying mode.

Mr., however, told The Economist that Ctrip's management has been aware of the urgency of user experience innovation in the past 2011 years. Ctrip's "Innovation Lab", which was launched last July, is a practical project for this strategic shift. Mr. also revealed that from the beginning of 2012 New Year's Day, Ctrip officially formed an independent development of the Department of Mobile Research.

In addition, in the face of the "Tonight Hotel special" sharpness, Ctrip with "preference hotel" (that is, fuzzy booking) This follow the innovative way to fight back. Unlike the former, Ctrip hopes to continue to occupy the high-end market.

According to Ctrip insiders said, CEO fan has given the company "from the mobile client sales of three years after the total sales share of 30%" target. These are ctrip in the new industry situation to reposition their own signals.

But, to be sure, apps are not ducks. "Tonight hotel Specials" combined with the anti-Ctrip industry forces penetrate the industrial chain; Hotel talent "The Use of art Dragon as a background supplier, the app of this" vertical "strategy, can make their own solid has been achieved in the industry position.

"You like stab before you put your opponent to death in the supply chain," he said. And now it's from hindering innovation to following innovation, which is helpful to the industry, I put my hands and feet in favor. "Jinxin to Business value".

Objectively speaking, the competitor "Dragon Slayer" Gongfu in the public opinion magnified the problem of Ctrip. But 2012 is indeed Ctrip's key moment, because today is not to be "awakened" by the fuss, will one day be hopeless and "petrified."