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Trip.com Australia, owned by one of the world’s largest and fastest growing online travel agents, has arrived in a big way – officially launching on Wednesday evening at a function in Sydney’s Hacienda at the Pullman Quay Grand Sydney Harbour, attended by over 60 travel industry partners.

Part of the Ctrip Group, the world’s largest online travel agency (OTA) by total transaction value, Trip.com is a one-stop travel shop for Australian travellers.

Trip.com offers flights, hotels, trains, car hire, airport transfers, day tours and attractions tickets across desktop, mobile and app. It plans to increase product offerings within the year.

Still a young OTA, Trip.com has experienced three-digit year-on-year growth. Expanding rapidly, it has entered five new markets and added six new languages in the past 12 months.

During a presentation to introduce the brand, Trip.com head of marketing Joanne Heggie said: “Trip.com is an app first online travel platform with no booking fees. We are offering competitive pricing for all your travel needs and supporting travellers before, during and after their travels with our 24/7 customer service.”

Kirk Wong from Trip.com and Ryan Montgomery from Air New Zealand

Heggie said that Trip.com’s service made it stand out. Calls were answered swiftly and speedily attended to.

Lynn Qu, Trip.com’s global vice president of product and marketing told the audience the company was delighted to host an event “where we can meet with our partners and media in the travel industry.

Representatives of many airlines were present; Qantas, Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific, Malaysia Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Aircalin among them.

L-R: Lynn Qu and Joanne Heggie of Trip.com 

“We are looking forward to learning more about Australian travellers and how we can continue to innovate our product offerings to cater to their needs.

L-R: Richard Jones, Cathay Pacific; Karen MacMillan, Hawaiian Airlines; Chris Thistlethwaite, Aircalin.

Trip.com provides one-stop travel booking services in 19 languages through its website and mobile app. Trip.com is available in 19 different languages including English, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Russian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Turkish, Polish, Greek, Indonesian, Malaysian and Thai, with the mobile app also featuring Vietnamese and Filipino.

L- R: Kirk Wong, Trip.com, Gabrielle Vicari and Mark Mulville from Malaysia Airlines, Ooi Chee Teng (CT) Trip.com

Trip.com is a part of the Ctrip Group, a NASDAQ listed company since 2003 with over 30,000 employees and over 300 million registered members, making it one of the leading online travel agencies in the world.

It’s the largest OTA in China and on some estimates the second-largest in the world – and biggest in total transaction value.

Ctrip’s space-age headquarters in Shanghai

With more than 1.2 million hotels in 195 countries and regions, C-trip has built an extensive hotel network to complement a far-reaching flight network with over 2 million individual flight routes connecting more than 5000 cities worldwide.

In December 2013, Ctrip acquired the American travel company Tours4fun for over USD 100 million. In November 2016, Ctrip acquired the Scottish travel company Skyscanner.

Below: Click on pics for captions

Written by Peter Needham