Trip.com Group Limited

And so after, you know, seeing, after doing the 3721 Yahoo deal, you know, I was exposed to a lot of other investors and companies in China.

At that time, I remember when we were closing 3721 in the office, I think there were, there were other, I think the founders of Ctrip were there, which ultimately became, you know, a, a very significant travel portal.

And so I just saw, you know, There's so much of the world descending on China, both on the investor side as well as the company side, founders, people who are moving from the U.S. and reinventing themselves.

And it was very exciting.

Let's get into it.

First off, China's antitrust crackdown just cost Trip.com Group millions and is reshaping how the company does business at home.

Trip.com booked a $770 million regulatory hit in the second quarter, tipping the company from $730 million in profit a year ago into a $358 million loss.

But the biggest story isn't the one-time charge, it's what comes next.

But other than that, I, I do agree with you, and I think I came away from, um, reading Ruby Wong's book and talking to her feeling like actually biotech is another aspect where, you know, in five, ten, fifteen years from now, China will be leading across the supply chain, but also across the research, um, uh, pipelines.

And James, I, I think one topic that we don't talk about enough but that I think will be one of the most significant drivers, and, and here I'm in part influenced by James Liang, who just came out with a book, Innovationism, and he's, you know, the CEO of Ctrip, is a demographer.

I think the talent pool is actually pretty significant.

So some of the figures coming out suggest that China dominates on AI top talent.

This thing's taking a trip, all right.

Trip.com, T-C-O-M.

I mean, you've got a big double bottom here on it.

But Trip.com was up at $79 back in January, and now we're at $39.

Ouch.

Ouchy.

Double bottom, though, by the way.

We have a double bottom going on.

Right, and this is where their overseas sales packages come into play.

Yeah, through platforms like Kluk, KKDay, and Trip.com,

right? Exactly.

Those packages help coordinate the trip, and alongside that, there are planned shuttles connecting the festival grounds directly with Gimhae International Airport or Busan Station.

They don't have time to deal with operators or even res techs.

So they have a deal with Viator and GetYourGuide and Klook and Trip.com and TUI and on and on and on.

So as TikTok rolls this out more, it's all gonna go through third party, through the OTAs.

That's how Google Things to Do got started too, right? Like, that was a big deal for Google, but they wanted to scale globally, so they're gonna start with the OTAs.

I actually spoke to James Liang as well.

He's the founder of Trip.com and he's also a He's a Stanford graduate who actually had a very keen interest in demographics as well.

And he made this point that in those kind of high stress exam environments, based on his research, that even in China and Singapore and a lot of these societies where examinations were a function of meritocracy, the parents going through that process themselves, when they become parents, they are very disinclined for kids to go through the same process.

So it's not just the fact that they're exhausted, but that they have some form of PTSD, if I might say.

works in the app.

And if you're going to be taking trains, if you're going to be taking planes, starting with Ctrip, which also owns internationally Skyscanner and others like an Expedia, that's very effective and it can be a little bit easier to book trains as well with a very small service fee.

So depending on what you're interested, you know, there's endless apps.

It's so sophisticated how Chinese live their day-to-day lives.

What happens, and historically has been very prevalent now, still lots of international ticketing sites, like if you tried to use a credit card portal redeeming your Chase or Amex points, in almost all cases, they're only redeeming it for that full fare price.

So you're typically getting terrible value.

If you use some of the Chinese sites like Ctrip that have English versions, you can see the full range of discounts.

And that's more and more international sites are showing those.

Scholars argue that this is, of course, insufficient, compared with the enormous costs of raising children.

James Liang, executive chairman of Trip.com and co-founder of Yuwa Population Research Institute, has proposed payments totaling around 62,000 yuan per child.

This would provide families with 855 yuan per month until a child turns six.

Liang estimates that such support could raise China's fertility rate by 25% to approximately 1.25% within several years.