On March 10, 2026, amid pressure from regulatory talks and ongoing public scrutiny, Trip.com officially removed its controversial "AI Pricing Assistant" tool. The news was welcomed by many hotel operators, who were relieved to no longer face automated undercutting or be forced into endless price wars.
However, more than 70 days later, has the hotel industry's environment improved as expected?
Interviews with over a dozen independent hotel owners, chain managers, and online travel agency (OTA) operators across various cities revealed a consistent response: the fundamental situation remains unchanged, only the method has shifted to a more labor-intensive one.
1. Algorithms Take a Break, Humans Work Harder The most notorious feature of the AI Pricing Assistant was its ability to scrape real-time prices for the same hotel from competitor platforms like Meituan and Fliggy. Upon detecting a lower price, it would automatically adjust the listing on Trip.com to ensure the "lowest price online."
After the tool's removal, price comparison did not disappear—it simply shifted from algorithms to human operators.
"Now I have to check the backend five or six times a day: see what nearby hotels of similar standards are charging, check if my property is listed at a lower price on other channels, and see how many vacant rooms I have left. Then I manually calculate whether to raise or lower prices," sighed Ms. Chen, owner of a budget hotel in Nanjing. "It's much more exhausting than before, but the number of bookings hasn't increased."
Tasks once handled automatically by the system have now reverted to hotel operators. One owner managing three independent hotels calculated that nearly two hours per day are spent monitoring competitors and adjusting prices—equivalent to the labor cost of hiring one and a half additional staff members.
Efficiency has decreased, but the intensity of price competition remains unchanged.
2. Low Prices Persist, Now with Added Chaos Some naively believed that without the AI Pricing Assistant, hotels would finally be able to set reasonable prices and avoid undercutting one another.
The reality is quite the opposite.
Small inns, family-run hotels, and budget chains on the same street continue to offer low prices to attract customers. If you don't adjust your prices, bookings go to competitors; if you match their prices, your profits shrink further.
Worse still, a new trend has emerged since the tool's removal: malicious and frequent manual price adjustments.
"Some hotels list a room at 100 yuan in the morning, change it to 60 yuan at noon, and raise it to 140 yuan in the evening. You never know what they're trying to achieve," said a manager of a chain hotel in Zhengzhou. "If you try to maintain a stable price, you end up being dragged along by these practices, and the entire pricing system in the commercial area becomes chaotic."
The competition hasn't stopped—it has simply become more disorderly.
3. Those Unable to Price Strategically Are More Lost The AI Pricing Assistant also had a lesser-known "hidden function": it served as a reference for pricing.
Many family-run hotels and newly opened establishments lacked a clear understanding of OTA pricing strategies—how much to adjust for peak and off-peak seasons, how to differentiate between weekdays and weekends, and how to set price gaps for different room types. Previously, they could rely on the AI Pricing Assistant for guidance, ensuring at least some bookings came in.
With the tool gone, many operators are now left confused and without a reference point.
"Last month, a new homestay opened next to my property. The owner, a retired woman, set her room rate at 168 yuan. After a week, she hadn't received a single booking. When I asked why she chose 168 yuan, she said, '168 sounds lucky—it means continuous prosperity,'" shared an OTA operator in Suzhou with five years of experience. "This isn't a joke; it's a real case. Many small businesses now set prices based on guesswork, leading to soaring vacancy rates and plummeting revenue."
While pricing autonomy has been returned to hotel operators, many lack the expertise to use it effectively.
4. Mid-to-High-End Hotels: Slight Relief, but No Windfall Mid-to-high-end chains, boutique hotels, and unique homestays have experienced some relief.
These establishments don't rely on rock-bottom prices to drive bookings; instead, they emphasize hardware, service, membership systems, and repeat customers. With the AI Pricing Assistant removed, they are no longer forced to lower their displayed prices to match budget hotels, allowing for some room to increase average rates.
However, this benefit is far smaller than anticipated.
"The overall pool of customers hasn't grown; everyone is still competing for the same group of travelers," admitted a sales manager at a four-star hotel in Chongqing. "Trying to earn more by raising prices is unrealistic. Even a slight increase leads to a drop in traffic."
5. Platforms Remain Unchanged: Low Prices Still Receive Priority Many businesses assumed that with the tool removed, platforms would no longer favor low prices.
This is a significant misjudgment.
The underlying rules governing Trip.com's traffic distribution remain unchanged. Search rankings and recommendation exposure still prioritize "price competitiveness." If your room rates are higher than those of competitors in the same area, your natural traffic will decrease, and your ranking will drop.
To secure basic exposure and bookings, price competition remains unavoidable.
The AI Pricing Assistant was merely an execution tool. The real driver—"lower prices earn more traffic"—remains firmly in place. The only difference is that, in the past, the system automatically lowered prices for you; now, you must manually make the painful adjustments yourself.
Conclusion: The Scapegoat Is Gone, but the Root Cause Remains After more than 70 days since the tool's removal, the industry landscape reveals:
Price competition has shifted from "automatic" to "manual," making operations more exhausting for hoteliers.
Malicious price adjustments and pricing chaos have increased rather than decreased.
Small and medium-sized businesses have lost their pricing reference point, leading to confusion and盲目.
The platform's underlying rule of "low prices first" remains firmly intact.
The AI Pricing Assistant was never the root cause of the hotel industry's price wars. It was merely a tool pushed to the forefront—a "scapegoat" sacrificed in the court of public opinion. The real drivers of price competition are oversupply of homogeneous services, limited consumer demand diversity, and the platform's systemic bias toward low prices in traffic allocation.
As long as these underlying structures remain unchanged, removing a tool merely shifts the pressure from machines back to humans.
The industry hasn't improved; it has simply found a new way to suffer.
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