Since short video app Douyin went viral, the new media forms represented by Douyin and popular social and e-commerce site Xiaohongshu have rounded on the circuit of travel inspiration and feedback. Legacy online travel businesses are only holding onto price comparison and transaction functions.

Mr. Gordon Chen, CEO of Qunar.com, will discuss how the new media forms and traditional online travel agencies could complement each other.

Today’s B&B operators, many as individual operators, are grappling with multiple issues. How to ensure compliance in safety and legality? How can big data assist in smart pricing and revenue management? How to maximize efficiency according to property location and check-out timing? How to guarantee security and intelligent maintenance? 

These issues affect not only the homestay market, but also smart and unstaffed hotels as they strive to improve the efficiency of operation and management. Let’s see how technologies could be leveraged to transform such business operations.

Artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, blockchain, big data and other innovative technologies have reached into the high-frequency daily payment sector. How will the payment industry evolve? For tourism companies, how should they adopt payment innovations into business operation to enhance online service capabilities, improve customer experience and promote sales growth?

Focusing on the payment touchpoints across the whole process from travel planning to the end of the journey, Ingenico will explore how to facilitate payment with emerging technologies and provide consumers with more quality and seamless experiences.

Blockchain is the next big trend after the Internet and smartphones. It is changing the technological world with unstoppable momentum. In the tourism industry, travel giants and startups alike have been vying to apply blockchain in product sourcing, channel sales and customer service. How will blockchain disrupt the travel business? How should tourism companies seize the opportunities brought by blockchain?

Mapbox creates an interactive experience beyond the mobile and web application through AR technology. AR mapping and navigation will make it easier and more direct and interesting to reach a destination. Users will be able to vividly see restaurants, shops and shows in the neighborhood through AR interface as they move around, which makes it a way to help convert footprints into sales. 

By applying AR technologies in the travel industry, Mapbox helps destination cities and businesses offer interesting features and scenes for travelers to access more colorful experiences that redefined the way we travel.

Facing the movement of global travelers and the increasingly fierce competition from the industry and outsiders, how can travel companies strengthen their differentiated competitive advantages? How to attract new users around the world and carry out product innovation & upgrading? How to increase conversion and improve profitability? The application of AI translation technology has enabled the tourism industry to expand the boundaries of users and travel companies, bringing new models, new experiences and new opportunities?

Can hotels have a master solution while the time and user base are constantly changing? Can music please hotels as a forever comfort to human beings? How big is the possibility to qualify a connection between music and the accommodation industry? 

To maximize hotel space, better user experience and achieve higher conversion rate and operating revenue, Zebra Music will discuss how music empowers hotels through a connection with younger customer and new marketing strategies.

Rapidly changing technologies and thriving tourism entrepreneurship are driving the internal innovation of many tourism companies. What should they do to build an internal mechanism to keep up the innovation momentum? How should they enhance their own competitive edges with external innovation products to meet the evolving needs of customers?

Innovative technologies like big data and blockchain are disrupting all industries, and the travel and tourism sector is no exception. It’s imperative that most travel brands push forward their internal transformation by leveraging technological innovation. To connect, innovate and empower development is the major theme of future tourism. 

Chinese online travel titan Ctrip is continuously updating its global brand image by building its dual international pivots of Trip.com and Skyscanner. With its growing market presence and accelerating supply-demand consolidation, Ctrip is a high profile in the domestic and overseas competition. How will the giant continue to forge ahead and gain greater traction in both domestic and international markets? 

Internal innovation and external crisis awareness keep an enterprise sharp. Will emerging travel brands such as Meituan Travel be the lions that Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel worried about? How will Ctrip sharpen its competitive advantage through upgrading innovative technologies and user experience? What is the match point in online travel competition?  

While controlling massive inventories in the global travel market, major tour operator groups TUI and Thomas Cook find China’s booming tourism market challenging, but that it can’t be ignored. The China market poses similar difficulties for both online and offline travel giants. 

How should travel giants turn their global resources into competitive advantages and deploy better localized brand strategies to knock on China's door? 

The global tourism industry is fragmented, with players including traditional GDS, technology solution and service providers and emerging startups vying to gain traction in the market. Where can travel firms find their breakthrough? In terms of resource consolidation and channel connectivity, how will existing and future technologies innovate and be applied in practice? Other than addressing the problem of information asymmetry, how will technologies evolve for vertical operation and enable participating enterprises to provide value services? What are the market prospects and industry trends in connecting and integrating global travel resources? 

Backed by Alibaba’s ecosystem, Fliggy is blessed with good online traffic, brand power and a younger audience. However, in the head-on competition with Ctrip, Meituan, Tongcheng-eLong and other OTAs, Fliggy needs to build truly unique services and products for distinctive positioning. How should Alibaba’s travel brand maximize its platform and market intelligence? 

“Travel wholesaler” now seems like an ancient word, and Chinese travel groups such as UTour Group and HNA CAISSA are ridding themselves of this outdated positioning. 

UTour Group is eyeing a whole-industry presence by building an integrated travel platform from outbound tour services; HNA CAISSA, a HNA Group subsidiary with high growth in operating revenue and net profit, has great potential in integrating resources; Tuniu and Tempus Tour are doubling down on direct procurement to gain control of more supplier resources and boost its competitive advantage. 

Be it traditional travel wholesale giants or online travel agencies, all players are transforming themselves into meaningful travel operators. A long-held truth in travel distribution is that the one with the most inventories generally wins. How will this old truth be interpreted in China’s fledgling market? 

The travel industry has undergone a tremendous change for the past 10 years. The change is revolving though free independent travel has become the main stream of new travel era. Emerging, niche travel will gradually get on the stage. Mafengwo may boldly predict the picture of the tourism industry in the next decade, to explore with peers on how to seize new opportunities in the new blue ocean of the upcoming tourism.

In the past two years, hotels have progressed from operating rooms and spaces to personalization and defining lifestyles. Hotels no longer look all the same. They have individualities with standards.

As a mid to high-end lodging brand, Atour has grown beyond hotel operations to explore lifestyle dimensions through crossover partnerships with music, new retail, payment for intellectual proporties, sports and smart experience brands. It has also established AT Lab and XBU for innovation. 

Atour will discuss at the event how to build a more innovative model for the future hotel industry, so as to cater to upgrading consumption and the growing millennial generation.

When we talk about digital transformation, it is no longer just about industry trends, but rather a definite path and a coping strategy to adapt to the new era. What capabilities should airlines cultivate in their digital transformation? How will they take advantage of technologies to reach their digital targets, improve competitiveness and increase customer experience? 

OYO started by solving a huge gap between branded hospitality for the few and a patchy, poor quality, highly disorganised market for the many and brought it all onto one simple, all-encompassing platform. 

We used three kinds of tools to solve this: Technology, Training and Experience Design. We now want to extend this approach to every category of living space that needs optimisation.

Ten years ago, Airbedandbreakfast.com was officially launched and became what the world now knows as Airbnb. Fast forward a decade, Airbnb now offers over 5 million homes across 191 countries. After entering China, Airbnb continued increasing its investments in the local market.

What’s behind company’s success in China? During his keynote, Mr. Nathan Blecharczyk, Co-Founder, CSO and Chairman of Airbnb China, will be sharing strategic insights of winning in China, Airbnb’s proprietary trends about local travelers, as well as talking about company's commitment to nurturing local communities.

As a pioneer in China's short-term rental industry, Tujia is been in its eighth year along and is faced with a few competitors with its spin-off Sweetome. 

The downturn in China's real estate space has clouded the short-term rental sector. How should we understand the prosperity of China's short-term rental business? What should local players do to fight against dominating international brands like Airbnb?

As China’s online juggernauts build bigger ecosystems, the cost of acquiring online traffic keeps mounting. Though a new league of online power players like Meituan, Toutiao and Didi is pushing the limits of imagination to boost traffic volume, the stranglehold that Ctrip maintains in online tourism means online traffic is still a precious commodity. What are the most effective means for tourism players to drive traffic to their own websites? How can they leverage traffic flow to boost conversion rate and user retention?

Mr. Qi Ji, co-founder of three major listing travel companies Ctrip, Homeinns Hotel Group and Huazhu Group, has witnessed China’s exponential growth in travel for the last two decades. Mr. Ji has now brought Huazhu Group to a new height – the NASDAQ-listed hotel giant’s market value has breached USD 10 billion. Is this good time or bad in Mr. Ji’s view? How will Huazhu Group carry through Mr. Ji’s dream for future development?