STB partners Trip.com to market the Lion City

Trip.com, an independent OTA part of the Ctrip Group, has committed to deepening the collaboration on the marketing of Singapore as a tourism destination with Singapore Tourism Board (STB).

Both parties have agreed to deepen their cooperation through multi-pronged efforts which include technology and data, exploring product R&D and brand marketing.

Trip.com has committed to deepening the collaboration on marketing Singapore as a tourism destination with STB (Pictured: Ctrip’s CEO Jane Sun and STB’s CEO Keith Tan)

This announcement came after a recent meeting between STB’s CEO Keith Tan and assistant chief executive Chang Chee Pey with Ctrip’s CEO Jane Sun and general manager of overseas destination marketing Edison Chen at the Shanghai headquarters of the Chinese OTA giant.

“OTAs like Ctrip and Trip.com are important channels for us to reach out to a wider audience, particularly the free and independent travellers. Our partnership with Ctrip and Trip.com reinforces our latest campaign efforts to target post-90s Chinese consumers who tend to book their holidays on their own,” Tan said in a statement.

According to STB, the number of inbound Chinese tourists increased by six per cent year-on-year to 3.4 million in 2018, making it Singapore’s largest tourist source market for two consecutive years. This translated to more than S$3.9 billion (US$2.8 million) in tourism revenue. Other major inbound tourism markets for Singapore include South-east Asia, Australia and Japan, where Trip.com has seen significant growth in recent years and can leverage its platform to drive further growth.

At the same time, Ctrip.com International has announced a proposal to change its name to Trip.com Group, which will be voted on at the upcoming annual general meeting on October 25.

“Trip.com is a great name that clearly conveys our mission to serve our customers through every part of their travel journey. It is easily relatable and understood by global travel audiences,” said James Jianzhang Liang, Ctrip’s executive chairman.

Sun added: “Under the group level, we will continue to operate Ctrip and Qunar as OTA brands for Chinese users, in addition to Trip.com and Skyscanner, our OTA brand and travel search brand for global users, respectively.”

Sponsored Post