BEIJING — Hotel reservations in China have surpassed pre-pandemic levels since late June, booking site Trip.com said Thursday.
Trip.com shares briefly fell by greater than 7% Thursday in Hong Kong trading, before recovering barely to shut 4.5% lower. Latest York-listed shares dropped 8.5% lower overnight, but were up 2.5% in prolonged trading.
“Overall our domestic China hotel reservation on our platform quickly rebounded and [have] surpassed pre-Covid levels from late June,” Cindy Xiaofan Wang, chief financial officer at Trip.com, said during an earnings call Thursday morning.
“Total domestic hotel bookings was around 20% higher than 2019 level in July, and we continued to grow over the 2019 level in August and achieved hyper growth versus 2021,” she said.
That growth got here despite continued sporadic lockdowns and travel restrictions across China to regulate Covid outbreaks. Tens of 1000’s of tourists were stranded within the resort area of Hainan province in August as a consequence of Covid control measures that canceled transportation off the island.
Staycations drove much of the summer travel increase.
Trip.com said that in the newest quarter, same-city hotel reservations grew by 30% compared with 2019 levels.
Nonetheless, Wang said the variety of domestic air passengers “was down by 70% to 80% versus the 2019 level in recent weeks.”
Trip.com reported second-quarter revenue of 4.01 billion yuan ($572.9 million), topping expectations of three.58 billion yuan, in line with FactSet. Revenue from accommodation reservations and transportation ticketing each beat estimates from FactSet.
Nonetheless, overall revenue within the second quarter marked a 32% decline from the identical period a yr ago, and a 2% decline from the prior quarter. The corporate said the drop was “primarily as a consequence of the continued disruptions resulting from the Covid-19 resurgence in China.”
International business boom
For the China-based company, its international offerings proved to be a shiny spot.
“The expansion in Trip.com was mainly driven by the strong recovery of international flights, and we’re comfortable to see such momentum continued in Q3,” Wang said, noting such air ticket bookings in July were near 90% of 2019 levels.
Within the second quarter, same-country hotel bookings outside China quadrupled versus 2019 levels, she said.
By region, revenue from Europe and American markets has already surpassed 2019 levels, Wang said.
Much of the world has relaxed many Covid travel restrictions, while China has maintained a stringent, so-called dynamic zero-Covid policy.
