The online travel agency (OTA) sector, serving as a crucial link between consumers and travel service providers, has a direct impact on the tourism market ecosystem through its compliance and fair competition practices. Trip.com Group Limited, a leading platform in the industry, has repeatedly faced public scrutiny and regulatory challenges in recent years due to pricing practices and market competition issues.
Disputes ranging from flight ticket refunds and booking errors to algorithmic price discrimination and sudden price hikes during special periods have frequently hindered consumer rights protection and led to a continuous decline in Trip.com Group's reputation.
Consumer complaints have become frequent, with difficulties in safeguarding rights becoming commonplace. Issues faced by users on Trip.com Group have long been a major source of criticism on social media platforms like Xiaohongshu, where numerous users share frustrating experiences related to ticket purchases and hotel bookings. Problems such as inability to seek redress, service failures, and pricing irregularities have become normalized pain points for consumers.
Ahead of Consumer Rights Day, a consumer from Jiangsu province shared on Xiaohongshu that they booked round-trip tickets from Shanghai to Abu Dhabi for 3,483 yuan through Trip.com Group before the Chinese New Year. Due to the impact of conflict in the Middle East, return flights were repeatedly canceled. During an emergency upgrade, they paid an additional 21,170 yuan for cabin class improvement. When subsequent flights were also canceled and they applied for a refund, Trip.com Group repeatedly deducted fees—first offering only 18,000 yuan, then revising to 20,470 yuan after verification. Despite national regulations requiring full refunds for involuntary changes during special events, the platform insisted on deducting upgrade change fees and partial economy class taxes, refusing further negotiation. The consumer accused the company of "profiting from national conflicts."
Another user reported purchasing a ticket from Guangzhou to Shanghai on Trip.com Group, where the platform clearly indicated the departure terminal as Baiyun Airport T3. Upon arrival, the user was informed that the actual boarding location was T1. With only one hour until departure, the passenger had to rush with luggage and nearly missed the flight. Customer service initially falsely claimed the flight was delayed and could be coordinated, later stating that rescheduling was impossible, forcing the user to purchase a new ticket at a high price. Subsequent compensation requests were delayed for days with excuses about "unclear responsibility" and "pending solutions."
Even a platinum member with over a decade of usage expressed intentions to uninstall the platform, citing clear algorithmic discrimination where their quoted price for the same flight was higher than that of a friend with lower membership status. The user also noted that during the Middle East conflict, local hotel prices on the platform doubled while requiring two-night consecutive bookings—a condition not imposed by the hotels themselves, suggesting possible price gouging. Additionally, after booking a flight on Trip.com Group late at night, the user found a lower price on Fliggy the next morning. When reported, Trip.com Group requested screenshots for verification but ultimately dismissed the case by stating they "cannot promise the lowest prices online."
Regarding issues such as exorbitant ticket prices, incorrect terminal information, arbitrary refund deductions, and algorithmic bias, Trip.com Group was contacted for comment but had not provided a complete response or specific rectification plan by the time of publication.
Conflicts have also escalated on the merchant side. Since April 2025, Trip.com Group's "Price Adjustment Assistant" feature has triggered complaints from hotel merchants in cities like Guiyang and Zhengzhou, with the core issue being unauthorized price reductions without merchant consultation, leading to losses for both businesses and consumers.
A hotel on Guiyang's Zhonghua Middle Road reported discrepancies where guests booked rooms for 180 yuan per night but were charged 210 yuan upon arrival, requiring an additional 30 yuan to check in. This resulted from the "Price Adjustment Assistant" automatically lowering prices without notification, a frequent occurrence since April 2025. A hotel near Guiyang's Chayuan Metro Station stated that the platform unilaterally reduced prices by 10%, with some adjustments reaching 10–15%. One hotel reported four automatic price changes in a single day on June 11, 2025, each set below their intended rates.
Merchant attempts to resolve the issue have been ineffective. Since March 2025, multiple applications to disable the "Price Adjustment Assistant" were rejected by Trip.com Group, with regional managers providing unclear responses. Some hotels assigned staff to monitor and manually correct prices in real time to avoid losses. Hotels in Zhengzhou filed reports with authorities, alleging that Trip.com Group forced merchants to enable the feature and manipulated room prices and discounts through technical means.
Trip.com Group responded that the "Price Adjustment Assistant" aims to help hotels adapt to market prices and enhance competitiveness, claiming merchants could disable it by contacting via bound phone numbers. However, this contradicted merchant experiences. On the Black Cat Complaint platform, nearly 300 complaints related to "Trip.com Group" and "price adjustment" cited inability to disable the feature causing revenue losses.
Legally, Trip.com Group's actions may violate regulations. Legal experts indicated that default enabling of the "Price Adjustment Assistant" without merchant consent and technical barriers to deactivation breach the Price Law regarding autonomous pricing rights. Further violations of the E-Commerce Law involve unreasonable restrictions on merchant transactions and pricing. If Trip.com Group holds a dominant market position, such practices could also contravene the Anti-Monopoly Law.
Regulatory interventions have intensified. On August 5, 2025, Guizhou's market regulator summoned Trip.com Group, Tongcheng, Douyin, Meituan, and Fliggy, addressing concerns including exclusivity clauses, technical interference in pricing, and price fraud. Just over a month later, Zhengzhou's market regulator conducted a special meeting with Trip.com Group, confirming violations of the E-Commerce Law and online anti-unfair competition rules by imposing unreasonable restrictions on merchant transactions and pricing. The platform was ordered to revise contract terms, optimize pricing tools, and establish compliance mechanisms.
However, local interventions did not resolve core violations. On January 14, 2026, China's State Administration for Market Regulation initiated a formal anti-monopoly investigation into Trip.com Group for suspected abuse of market dominance.
Monopoly concerns extend beyond pricing. On December 8, 2025, Yunnan's Tourism Homestay Association announced anti-monopoly efforts after members reported Trip.com Group enforcing exclusivity clauses, arbitrarily increasing commissions, and suppressing traffic. The association began collecting evidence of unfair competition and monopoly practices.
Legal experts previously stated that exclusivity practices exploit market dominance, violating anti-monopoly and unfair competition laws. If confirmed, Trip.com Group could face significant fines and required business model adjustments, potentially benefiting competitors like Tongcheng and Fliggy while promoting industry-wide compliance.
Internally, Trip.com Group faces challenges as executives liquidated shares and co-founders resigned amid strong financial performance. In 2025, co-founder and President Fan Min executed four share sales, totaling approximately 219 million yuan. Founder and Chairman James Liang liquidated shares worth 527 million yuan in September 2025, while COO Xiong Xing sold shares valued at 200 million yuan. By February 28, 2025, Fan Min held less than 1% of shares, James Liang 5.3%, and CEO Jane Sun 2.1%. Market analysts viewed these moves as potential indicators of reduced internal confidence, possibly pressuring stock prices.
On February 26, 2026, Trip.com Group reported financial results and announced board changes: Fan Min resigned as director and president, co-founder Ji Qi stepped down as director, and Wu Yihong and Xiao Yang were appointed independent directors. The company described the changes as efforts to enhance board independence and diversity, noting that Fan Min and Ji Qi remain supporters. Of the four founding members, only James Liang remains as chairman.
Financially, Trip.com Group reported 2025 net revenues of 62.4 billion yuan, up 17% year-over-year, with net income attributable to shareholders surging 95% to 33.3 billion yuan. Fourth-quarter net revenues grew 21% to 15.4 billion yuan, with net income rising 95.5% to 4.3 billion yuan. However, transportation ticketing—once a cash cow—slowed significantly, with full-year revenue increasing only 11% to 22.5 billion yuan, lagging behind the 21% growth in accommodation bookings, due to airline commission compression pressures.
Regulatory pressures persist. In February 2026, financial and market regulators in Beijing summoned Trip.com Group over compliance issues in lending services and train ticket sales. The company stated it would cooperate fully with investigations and maintain normal operations.
Price monitoring failures resurfaced in late February 2026 when Damascus-to-Shanghai tickets were listed at over 5.54 million yuan, exposing flaws in price review mechanisms. Searches showed no available flights from March 2–6, 2026, with prices returning to normal levels by March 7. Trip.com Group attributed the incident to supplier system errors and pledged stricter price audits. Experts highlighted platform obligations for price verification, noting vulnerabilities in high-risk route monitoring.
Industry competition is shifting as compliant platforms gain traction. Tongcheng Travel reported 253 million annual paying users by Q3 2025, serving over 2 billion人次 annually. Q3 revenues reached 5.51 billion yuan, up 10.4%, with transportation and accommodation revenues growing 9% and 14.7%, respectively. Unlike Trip.com Group's unilateral approaches, competitors like Tongcheng, Fliggy, and Meituan emphasize merchant collaboration and pricing autonomy, aligning with regulatory trends toward fair competition.
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