Ctrip, China’s largest online travel services provider, plans to boost the proportion of total revenue it makes from overseas customers from 2% to at least 20% over the next five years, using its recently-acquired Trip.com brand as a bridgehead for international expansion.

While capitalising on the massive outbound Chinese tourist market, Ctrip also wants to grow its overseas business in Asian markets such as South Korea and Japan, and ultimately places like London in the UK, said James Liang Jianzhang, the chairman and co-founder of Ctrip in an interview on Friday.

“The travel market is a global market,” said Liang. “If you’re just doing one market, you can’t realise the economies of scale to compete. If you want to be a player (in the market), you have to reach the same scale as your competitors.”

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