Inbound tourism was one of the key highlights in Trip.com’s latest earnings call. In Q2, inbound bookings on the platform grew by more than 100% year-on-year, with 71% coming from visa-free regions, notably South Korea and Southeast Asia.
According to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, inbound visitors to China increased by 30% in the first half of 2025. Trip.com noted that inbound tourism currently contributes less than 0.5% to China’s GDP, compared with 1%-2% in mature markets. This suggests that inbound travel is still in an early, policy-driven phase, with significant growth potential ahead.
In today’s global travel environment, marked by restructuring under reciprocal tariffs, the renewed recognition of and return to China by East Asian outbound travelers represents not only a rebound opportunity for Trip.com’s inbound business, but also the starting point for reshaping broader travel habits.
For these East Asian travelers, trips to China are lower-cost and more frequent compared to long-haul travel to Europe or the U.S. This positions Trip.com to strengthen reliance on its “one-stop platform” in the short- and mid-haul travel segments.
By contrast, East Asian travelers’ trips to Europe and the U.S. are high-budget, low-frequency, and long-haul in nature. This makes it harder for Booking.com (strongest in Europe) and Expedia (strongest in the U.S.) to cultivate habitual app usage from this demographic. Still, their global scale continues to give them meaningful advantages when competing with Trip.com.
