Oct 29, 2020|

Trip.com and JD.com Join Hands in Promoting Domestic Travel

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by Kelly Dawson and Vivian Yang

Despite a significant impact to domestic tourism under COVID-19 in the first half of 2020, travel in China has steadily gained momentum in recent months.

To capitalize on that momentum and improve the user experience for consumers who are increasingly turning to online channels to book flights, hotels and vacation activities, JD.com announced in August that it has partnered with leading travel services provider Trip.com to integrate the two platforms.

In a continuation of that partnership, JD Retail CEO Lei Xu and Trip.com’s co-founder and Chairman Liang Jianzhang hosted a joint live-streaming event for Trip.com’s 21st anniversary on October 28th. It was the first time the two companies co-hosted a livestream, and also the first time Xu joined a livestreamed event for travel products.  

Over 5.7 million people wathced the livestream during its peak time. Data showed that the sales of  hotels on JD Travel on the day increased by 776% compared with the same period last year.

To entertain the audience during the livestream, Liang cosplayed the Monk Tang (唐僧), a leading character in China’s classic novel “Journey to the West”, who Liang referred to as a symbol of the most experienced traveler. In response, Xu chose another famous character in the same novel, High Lord (太上老君), who always held a fan in his hand.

“Journey to the West”, who Liang referred to as a symbol of the most experienced traveler.

“As we all know, the tourism industry was one of the most hard-hit businesses in the first half of the year,” Xu said. “I’m here today to fan the flames for the sales of Ctrip’s travel products.”

Liang replied with compliments for the e-commerce platform. “JD provides the most trusted products and supreme delivery services,” he said. “Our company and  I always buy things on JD, especially expensive products.”

During the livestreaming event, Xu and Liang shared personal anecdotes about their own travels and shopping experiences on each other’s platforms over the years, lending a touch of intimacy to the festivities.

Spontaneous “red envelope” gifts were also announced, pocketed by a few lucky viewers.

Through the Singles Day promotion period, JD will continue to offer huge discounts with a one-stop preferential chain covering the front and back ends of airfare, hotel accommodations, tickets for parks and other entertainment events, and more.

“JD provides the most trusted products and supreme delivery services

Announced in August, the partnership between JD and Trip.com aims to help the two companies leverage each other’s resources in five areas, namely user flow, channel resources, cross-border marketing, business travel development and e-commerce cooperation.

More specifically, Trip.com has integrated its core product supply chain into JD.com, providing the company with real-time product inventory and highly competitive prices. In return, JD.com has opened its platform’s user traffic to Trip.com, providing all-around support in terms of daily operation and more precise-marketing based on user profiles.

For consumers, the benefits are obvious: a more fully integrated ecosystem of duty free, hotel and service industries and impressive deals. For example, when China relaxed travel restrictions to Macau earlier this autumn, JD and Trip.com launched a promotion that saw prices slashed at top hotels including the Marriott, MGM and more.

Consumers can expect the cooperation between JD and Trip.com to yield more deals in the coming months.

 

(kellydawson@jd.com, vivian.yang@jd.com)

 

 

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