Ctrip establishes first overseas call center at Skyscanner's headquarters in Edinburgh

On April 11, Scottish Chief Minister Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon visited Ctrip Shanghai headquarters. "Ctrip expects to have more cooperation with Scotland in the future." Ctrip CEO Sun Jie told 21st Century Business Herald that Ctrip has recently established the first overseas call center in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and Edinburgh is home to Skyscanner.

At the end of 2016, Ctrip acquired the world's leading flight search engine Skyscanner, headquartered in Scotland, for a transaction volume of RMB 12 billion. This has become one of the ways Ctrip has accelerated the globalization process.

“Europe is now a very popular tourist destination, and we hope that we can use the same time zone services to provide customers with a better experience. Edinburgh is also a very international city, we can provide customers with multilingual services.” Jie said.

Sterkin said that Scotland has a world-class university and attracts more R&D projects than any other UK region including London. This will also provide more possibilities for cooperation between the two sides.

China is an important market for the development of tourism in Scotland. According to Ctrip big data, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Scotland in 2017 increased by more than 120% year-on-year, and per capita consumption increased by 49.9%. The per capita consumption of Ctrip users reached 14,412 yuan. In addition, Edinburgh has become the most popular tourist destination for Chinese tourists after London.

“Ctrip currently has 300 million registered users and generates 50TB of data per day. Monitoring of this data can be better predicted and personalized, and we ensure that we keep up with market trends and better meet the needs of travelers. For example, a person From Edinburgh to Edinburgh, we can arrange the hotel, computer field to the hotel in the shortest distance, push the itinerary, and recommend restaurants.” Sun Jie introduced.

In recent years, Ctrip spent a lot of money on ABC. A is artificial intelligence (AI), B is big data, and C is cloud computing. "From the robot VTMs to the global SOS system, our core strength has been the integration of innovation and technology. As we continue to expand overseas, this will become a good weapon for us." Sun Jie said.

"Globalization" has always been Ctrip's key strategy. Previously, Liang Jianzhang, the co-founder and chairman of the executive board, and several senior executives including CEO Sun Jie emphasized the "international tourism ecosystem" that Ctrip is currently building.

Ctrip’s financial report for the fourth quarter of 2017 showed that the revenue generated by Tianzhu’s “direct booking” function doubled year-on-year, and that Ctrip’s ticket sales through the sky tour increased by more than 300% year-on-year.

“In the past year, Ctrip's investment in Tian-Tsing has begun to show significant synergies.” Liang Jianzhang explained in a conference call after the publication of the financial report that Ctrip helped Tian-Tsing develop a direct booking engine, which enabled the conversion of Ctrip to the Skywalker. The rate has increased by more than 50%.

Liang Jianzhang also stated that he hopes to increase Ctrip’s international business income to 40% to 50% of its overall revenue within five years.

Sun Jie told the 21st Century Business Herald that Ctrip will continue to adhere to its strict investment strategy in the future of international mergers and acquisitions: invest only in tourism-related areas; invest only in one of the best companies in the field; consider for each investment Future growth.