Russian travel firms sound alarm over China’s Trip.com expansion
The Chinese travel platform Trip.com is now being described by Russian industry figures as a key competitive risk, thanks to its ability to offer cheap foreign flights, a vast hotel network and access to customers that local booking services cannot easily match.
Leonid Pustov, who runs the startup commission at the Russian Union of Travel Industry, told business daily Kommersant that Trip.com is increasingly considered a «key risk» by Russian online travel agencies.
Trip.com can bargain for cheaper fares with foreign airlines and provide a wide range of hotels overseas, Pustov remarked. That is particularly uncomfortable for Russian accommodation-booking platforms that have been in a more sheltered market since Western rivals pulled out.
Another source in the Russian travel industry, also cited by the newspaper, said the greater concern was with the Russian hotel-booking platforms. Trip.com has been operating in Russia since 2019 but has been growing its presence since 2022, when Booking.com, Airbnb and other international services exited and Russian bank cards became increasingly difficult to use on foreign websites.
It left a significant gap for a company with international hotel inventory, access to foreign airlines, and the scale to negotiate aggressively on price.
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The Chinese platform’s revenue in the first quarter was $2.4 billion, and gross bookings on its international platform jumped about 65% year-on-year, the group said. Lodging alone accounted for $944 million in quarterly revenue.
Why Russian companies want Trip.com brought under local rules
Meanwhile, the Public Consumer Initiative, a local advocacy group, has asked the Economy Ministry to consider adding Trip.com to Russia’s register of intermediary digital platforms. It has also approached state consumer market and Internet regulators, citing complaints involving refunds, allegedly inaccurate flight or accommodation information and marketing messages.
Russian lawyers interviewed by the newspaper said the practical problem is that Trip.com has no local representation against which consumers can easily enforce claims. Its paperwork lists entities in jurisdictions like Singapore and Kazakhstan. A Russian court can hear a consumer dispute, but enforcing a judgement abroad may prove difficult when the company has neither assets nor a representative office in Russia.
Trip.com may have to set up a Russian legal entity, clarify sellers and payment recipients, disclose how listings are ranked, introduce a formal complaints process and provide information to tax authorities.
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Last month, Chinese regulators fined Trip.com about $765 million after finding it abused its dominant position by demanding the lowest rates on its platforms and blocking some hotels from working with rivals. Trip.com accepted the ruling and pledged to take corrective action.
