Travel companies in China are vying for overseas supplier resources as the nation’s outbound tourism sector grows rapidly. The travel industry is being revolutionized, driven by technological advancement and consolidation, with enhancement in the connections between online and offline, domestic and overseas travel companies, and companies and consumers. Travel firms are increasingly focused on user experience and efficiency improvement brought about by innovative technologies following major acquisitions and mergers in the business. Technology applications and development of VR, AI, robots and others are on the rise in the integration and innovation of global tourism.

 As an acquisition veteran for the Priceline Group, Mr. Glenn Fogel led the strategic acquisition of Booking.com, which has been driving Priceline’s robust growth for more than a decade. Now as CEO and president of the Priceline Group, where will Glenn lead the colossal enterprise towards? 

Having dominated the domestic market, Ctrip is now ushering in its core strategies for internationalization in the next few years. As the company’s first female CEO, Ms. Jane Sun has made her way to the stage from behind the scene. How will she build a team committed to the globalization mission? How will she leverage Skyscanner and MakeMyTrip to deliver an international platform of Ctrip and maintain the company’s innovative spirit? 

Ctrip’s dominance in China’s travel market does not mean that the firm can rest on its laurels. Technological innovation and changes in customer needs have made the industry an ever-evolving sector. For industry newcomers, how will they break through to the next level in the market? Where do their opportunities lie? 

Having gone through cut-throat competitions in China's online travel business, OTAs are now targeting offline travel market and building their brick-and-mortar presence. On the other hand, tour operators like Utour and Caissa are also investing in online platforms to improve their customer acquisition. Will OTAs' foray into offline business be a game changer for the sector? What kind of transformation will this online-offline integration bring about?

Huazhu Hotels Group is not just a leading mid-scale and budget hotel company in China, but also the only major Chinese hotel group listed on Nasdaq. The company has been upgrading its accommodation products in recent years and investing in new segments such as apartment leasing, shared workspace, and bicycle rentals. How is Huazhu leading this technology-driven industry transformation? 

Tujia has further strengthened its foothold in China’s homestay and short-term rental market after its acquisition of Mayi.com and the homestay business of Ctrip and Qunar. But it still faces competition from domestic and international rivals like Airbnb. As Chinese consumers have yet to cultivate their purchase habits for homestay and short-term rental, how will Tujia foster China-style homestay service?

Nowhere is digital reshaping the travel industry more than China.  In this talk we'll discuss how digital innovations are changing travel and especially the hotel industry.

Through the Internet Big Data generated from its more than 200 million Fliggy users and over 500 million Alibaba users, Fliggy is able to apprehend the needs of its users and present the online travel industry a series of innovations, such as allowing customers with high
credit rating to reserve hotel rooms without paying a deposit and to enjoy express check-out
service, building online visa application with graph text recognition technology and Internet process. Fliggy as a platform wants to leverage more advanced technologies and facilitate the travel industry with high-efficiency connection between consumers and enterprises.

In this ever changing mobile world with loads of information and where consumers have full control of what content to consume, companies that can find a profitable niche and take a step up on pursuing people first marketing strategy will be able to thrive. Despite the competition, there is always room for innovation, especially in such a varied and large market as travel.  Join us and listen to Jayne Leung, VP of Facebook Greater China,  who will unveil the power of people-based marketing for global travel businesses,  how to adopt the latest technology and solutions to reach the right target around the world, build brand, drive sales and embrace long-term true value.

The year 2016 was an eventful one for airline distribution: Lufthansa had introduced a Distribution Cost Charge (DCC) for bookings made via a GDS and launched direct connection between airline distributors and corporate clients. The Chinese airline companies have rolled out direct booking initiatives to boost their direct sales. What will be the changes this year in airline distribution? What distribution model will be dominant in the future?

Video is the most vivid and powerful platform to share the experience of travel, and its ability to inspire and reach people on an emotional level makes it a valuable tool for tourism marketing. That’s why TravelDaily and Dragon Trail Interactive are launching the 2017 Tripshow Video Marketing Competition to find the best, most innovative travel video of the year. Click here to view more information  >>

The increasingly diversified travel behaviors have made it difficult for travel brands to target and capture their potential customers. Even with identified groups of users, it is not easy to forecast their travel at the right time. Based on Tencent's big data, travel brands can record the consumers' actual travel behaviors, online information browsing, search history and others. By labeling user behaviors in terms of groups, regions, means of transport, accommodation, travel, and class-ranking, how will Tencent's big data help travel brands select the right audience at decision-making for marketing strategies, and optimize their marketing performance?

With the emergence of mobile Internet, media fragmentation, and experience-oriented travelers, how should travel brands string together their external media promotion and internal conversion in the face of various changes of the marketing environment? How should they progress on the personalized marketing for travelers?

A single lodging experience involves more than 20 service touch points between a hotel and its guest, with service control from hotel departments including front desk, guest rooms and others. How will hotels upgrade their guest experience in the intelligent era? Doctor Lin will showcase a few typical user scenarios, analyze what the customers need, and explore the practice of intelligent system construction by sharing JointWisdom’s entry point through hotel terminal internetization.

Worldpay's seamless payment experience covers 3 chapters: making payments, processing payments, and ancillary services.

Making payments explores offering the right payment mix and is influenced by our Pay That Way research. Processing payments outline our expertise and advice on how to best set up and take payments across many markets. Ancillary services cover how Hotels & OTAs can best optimise their setup to increase revenue and improve UX. 

China’s travel industry is extremely competitive with companies vying for market share even at the cost of their profits. How will travel brands with deep pockets improve their competitiveness, target and reach the precise consumer groups and markets, tap into the global market, and build up a system of destination resources and services?

Big Data is no longer a new term nowadays, but most companies are yet to benefit from it. What role can data play in the positioning and operation of a travel product? What path should be taken to develop a product strategy, what successful cases are there leveraging data application, and what difficulties lie ahead of it?

With the expanding usage of new technologies such as OTO experience consumption, robot service, virtual reality and facial recognition, technological applications are playing an important role in improving customer experience and service efficiency. But when the customers are to migrate from old consumer scenarios to new ones, how will their acceptance change? Will technology-enabled service upgrades gain customer popularity and strengthen loyalty?

Data Drives Transactions. In the Big Data era, the ability to unlock the full potential of big data and thus monetize those data would be the key to winning the business rivalry, which both the quality and fluidity of data act as the indispensable elements. Victor Wu, CEO at Vpon Big Data Group will reveal how to seamlessly connect and utilize the Asian tourists’ data collecting within and out of China, and combine with Vpon’s 360° cross-border marketing solution to create business opportunities. Moreover, Victor will demonstrate a dynamic visualized dashboard of Asian tourists’ behavior pattern for the first time in the workshop. Also, he will share the tips of success in data+ cross-border marketing with the illustration of real cases from multinational companies.

As the largest local lifestyle service platform in China, Meituan Travel has one-stop services and user data pertaining dining, lodging, transport, shopping and more. Meituan Dianping has accumulated full-categories and high-frequency consumer data. How will it help hotels target the right consumers at the right touchpoints and boost the hotels’ total revenues?

Facing a huge customer base in the tourism industry, how should travel brands capture the whole customer contact data through all touch points quickly and fulfill the real-time synchronization among multi-party data?

How to implement action and data application in the closed-loop, such as data-driven marketing, personalized recommendation, customer experience optimization and fine operation?
Can AI be used for customer purchase behavior forecast to obtain business opportunities and maximize customer value?

The pricing and revenue management capability is one of the most important core-competitiveness in companies. The traditional RMS cannot confront the challenge in the internet environment.  Advanced technologies such as AI and data mining provide the possible solution. The 5efly team made a significant breakthrough in the general purpose AI platform for pricing and revenue management and used it in the hotel and airline industry.

As hotels continue their efforts to keep up with latest and greatest in electronic distribution, Metasearh is one of the three hottest topics - mobile, social media and Metasearch. We will unveil the newest trend of Metasearch marketing with the data from the big players in the field, and look into the movement of Metasearch from an OTA alternative to a marketing mix strategy. 

What will be the new landscape for Metasearch marketing for hotels? Do we still believe that Metasearch is the alternative way to OTA? Let us discover the newest trend of Metasearch marketing with the data from the big players (Google, Trivago, TripAdvisor) in the field, and look into the movement of Metasearch from an OTA alternative to a marketing mix strategy, while hotels not only obtain more direct bookings, but also achieve their brand exposure goal in the long term.

Each of the three winning teams from Thack, co-hosted by Tnooz and TravelDaily, will present their products to the audience.

The pace and scope of the Digital Revolution means companies need to continuously innovate, but also collaborate and learn. Find out about Amadeus' approach to innovation in the Age of Disruption and what we've learned through programmes like Amadeus Next, partnering with startups.

Eight companies that have prevailed in various rounds of elimination will showcase their product innovations within their eight-minute time slots. They will face sharp and perceptive questions from the experienced product experts on the judging panel as well as the audience, and then the judging panel will name the winner of "China Travel Innovation Challenge".

Investments in China’s travel entrepreneurship had plunged to a new low in the past year and many startups have collapsed due to high costs on customer acquisition and blood-letting price wars. Yet the Chinese travel industry still presents great opportunities for investments. Where are the investment and startup opportunities of the travel industry for established investors and entrepreneurs? What lessons can be learned by entrepreneurs from the ups and downs of the past few years?