Trip.com Group Limited (TCOM) has once again found itself at the center of public controversy. This past weekend, following military strikes in the Middle East that led to the closure of airspace around several countries and the cancellation of numerous flights, an extreme situation emerged for travelers. Damascus became one of the few locations in the region with operational flights. However, on February 28th, users shared screenshots from the Trip.com app showing airfares from Damascus to Shanghai priced as high as 5.55 million yuan, with other listed fares at 3.82 million, 1.18 million, and 700,000 yuan.
The exorbitant prices immediately sparked intense online discussion. While users acknowledged that tense geopolitical situations can cause supply-demand imbalances and price surges, a ticket price exceeding 5.5 million yuan was widely deemed unreasonable. Many speculated it was likely a system error.
Trip.com subsequently removed the abnormal flight listings, attributing the issue to an operational error by a supplier that caused a display anomaly on the front end. The company clarified that the actual ticket price was approximately ten thousand yuan and emphasized that as a platform, it merely displays and facilitates sales for suppliers, who set their own prices, and does not profit from such errors.
Although the technical issue was resolved, public criticism of Trip.com persisted. Critics argued that the company's response was an attempt to shift blame and that, as an intermediary platform, it bears responsibility for reviewing supplier-provided prices. The incident highlighted a perceived lack of oversight within Trip.com's system regarding its suppliers. In response, the company stated it would enhance internal price verification processes for all routes to ensure reasonable and transparent pricing and prevent future occurrences of such pricing anomalies.
Dissatisfaction with Online Travel Agency (OTA) platforms like Trip.com is not new. Long-standing complaints include practices like "surcharged ticket purchasing" and "big data price discrimination." In August and September of last year, Trip.com was summoned by market regulatory authorities in Guizhou Province and Zhengzhou, Henan, over concerns including potentially enforcing "exclusive deals," interfering with merchant pricing through technical means, post-booking price hikes, price fraud, and inflating prices.
In December, the Yunnan Provincial Tourism Homestay Association initiated anti-monopoly rights defense against several OTA platforms, including Trip.com, accusing them of leveraging market dominance to impose unfair terms, such as forced "exclusive deals" and arbitrary commission increases. Following these repeated summons and collective actions, on January 14th, the State Administration for Market Regulation initiated a formal antitrust investigation into Trip.com Group Limited for suspected abuse of market dominance.
After the investigation was announced, Trip.com was summoned twice more by regulators. On February 12th, during the Spring Festival holiday, Trip.com was among 12 third-party train ticket platforms summoned by the Beijing Market Supervision Bureau, which demanded an end to misleading practices like implying paid services guarantee ticket priority. On February 13th, Trip.com and five other travel platforms were jointly summoned by the National Financial Regulatory Administration, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the People's Bank of China over their "embedded lending" models. However, reports from the Sichuan Daily半个月 later indicated that some platforms, including Trip.com, were still selling paid priority services, sometimes hinting at "special channels" or "technical advantages," and were evading questions about rectification.
Compounding these challenges, a significant shake-up occurred within the company's core leadership. Shortly after the antitrust investigation began, Trip.com announced major personnel changes: co-founders Fan Min and Ji Qi resigned from their positions. The company's Q4 and full-year 2025 earnings report disclosed that, effective February 25, 2026, co-founder Fan Min resigned as director and president, and Ji Qi resigned as director. The board praised their fundamental contributions to the company's founding and success.
Reflecting on Trip.com's history, the company was founded in May 1999 by James Liang, Neil Shen, Fan Min, and Ji Qi, known collectively as the "Four Gentlemen of Ctrip." Neil Shen left in August 2005 to pursue a career in venture capital with Sequoia Capital China. In recent years, Chairman James Liang has been more publicly active as a demographics expert. The departure of Fan Min and Ji Qi means James Liang is now the sole remaining founding member on the board.
According to public data, Trip.com's shareholding structure is relatively dispersed. Baidu, Inc. is the largest shareholder with a 7% stake, while James Liang is the third-largest shareholder with 5.3%. Other major shareholders include prominent international institutions like Capital World Investors and BlackRock, Inc.
The news of the co-founders' departures overshadowed the company's strong financial results. The report showed that for Q4 2025, Trip.com achieved net revenue of 15.398 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.8%, and net profit of 4.273 billion yuan, a significant increase of 95%. For the full year 2025, net revenue reached 62.409 billion yuan, up 17.1% year-on-year, with net profit surging 93.8% to 33.386 billion yuan.
However, this explosive profit growth was primarily driven by investment gains. The company reported investment gains of 19.9 billion yuan for 2025, a substantial increase from 1.1 billion yuan in 2024. This was largely due to the partial divestment of its stake in Indian online travel platform MakeMyTrip Limited in June 2025, with proceeds between $2.5 and $3 billion. The recognition of this gain in the third quarter contributed significantly to the quarterly profit. Excluding this one-time factor, the company's core business maintained steady growth.
Amid the ongoing antitrust investigation, repeated regulatory summons, and the upheaval in its core management team, questions remain about the future direction of Trip.com and the focus of its chairman, James Liang.
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