Ctrip is once again summoned for investigation, exposing three major violations

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Source: Huajiao Finance

OTA and other platform companies have once again been summoned for talks.

According to CCTV News, on March 25,

Beijing

Market Supervision Bureau, together with the Municipal Commerce Bureau and the Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau, lawfully summoned and provided administrative guidance to 12 platform companies including Ctrip, Qunar, Amap, JD.com, Taobao Flash Sale, Fliggy Travel, and Tongcheng Travel.

This time, the topic was “involution-style” competition.

The report mentioned that during this meeting, the first batch of issues found since launching the comprehensive rectification of platform “involution” competition was announced, along with rectification requirements.

Interestingly, among the 12 platform companies, Ctrip ranked first.

Of the 8 typical cases disclosed during the meeting, Ctrip was directly involved in 3, and its subsidiary Qunar accounted for 2, making 5 out of 8 cases related to Ctrip.

01

Regulatory Summons: Ctrip’s Three Major “Landmines”

The 8 typical cases announced during the meeting involved Taobao, Amap, JD.com, Ctrip, and Qunar.

Ctrip was involved in the most cases, directly related to 3:

① Ctrip’s automatic price matching, depriving hotels of pricing autonomy.

Ctrip uses technology to real-time capture full-channel hotel prices, demanding the lowest prices on its platform. If hotels do not cooperate, the platform applies pressure via calls, traffic restrictions, automatic price matching, and other means to directly intervene in pricing.

Abusing platform dominance, forcing hotels to adopt minimum prices, interfering with pricing, and restricting traffic may have already infringed on merchants’ operational autonomy.

Regulators have now urged Ctrip to remove the “Price Adjustment Assistant.”

② Ctrip’s unreasonable “cutting customers” judgment and penalty rules.

Ctrip considers consumers who place orders on Ctrip but are guided by hotels to avoid transactions on Ctrip as “cutting customers.”

Even if you book on Ctrip for one day and extend your stay at the hotel front desk for another day, it counts as “cutting customers,” which is excessive.

Regulators have now guided Ctrip to optimize the “cutting customer” rules, stating that behaviors like online booking followed by offline extension should not be considered as “cutting customers.”

③ Ctrip’s “Thumbs Up” badge misleading consumers.

Previously, Ctrip marked orange and red “Thumbs Up” badges after the names of partner and gold-star hotels.

Regulators disclosed that this badge has nothing to do with the actual service level of the hotel and may mislead consumers.

Regulators have guided Ctrip to remove the “Thumbs Up” badge.

If it weren’t for the news disclosures, many wouldn’t realize there are so many “tricky operations” involved.

02

Qunar.com, Compliance Mechanism in Name Only

Qunar, acquired by Ctrip years ago, was involved in two cases this time.

① False advertising by third-party train ticket sales platforms.

During the meeting, regulators mentioned that platforms promote paid services like “Ticket Snatching Speed-up Pack” and “Dual Channels,” claiming to “significantly improve ticket success rates” and “priority purchase,” which are misleading commercial promotions.

Although Qunar is used as a case, this is a industry-wide issue. Whether Ctrip, Qunar, Fliggy, or Tongcheng, many are claiming to accelerate ticket purchases to harvest users, and they have repeatedly failed to correct these practices.

Regulators bluntly stated that these platforms are “packaging the free backup ticketing service provided by 12306 as exclusive value-added benefits.”

Honestly, this operation is quite over the line.

② Qunar’s compliance operation mechanism in name only.

Regulators pointed out that Qunar has insufficient emphasis on compliant operations, has not actually established a compliance management organization, and lacks a systematic compliance mechanism. It also has inadequate risk assessment for major promotional activities and rule revisions.

This is a very serious problem—Qunar’s compliance practices are not passing.

For a platform of such scale and with so many users, failing in compliance is undoubtedly disastrous.

03

Repeated Summons and Investigations

Before this round of regulatory summons to 12 platforms, relevant authorities had already summoned these platforms multiple times.

Based on incomplete public information, including this time, Ctrip and others have been summoned, reported, or investigated a total of 6 times over the past year.

① In February this year, the Financial Regulatory Bureau, together with the Market Supervision Bureau and the People’s Bank of China, summoned six travel platforms including Ctrip, Amap, Tongcheng Travel, Fliggy, Hanglv Zhenghang, and Qunar.

This summons targeted issues related to their cooperation with financial institutions in lending activities.

② In August 2025, Guizhou Market Supervision Bureau summoned Ctrip and four other travel platforms.

This meeting addressed issues such as “choice of two” practices, using technology to interfere with merchant pricing, order cancellations or surcharges after order confirmation, price fraud, and price gouging, along with further warnings about legal risks.

③ On September 17, 2025, Zhengzhou Market Supervision Bureau lawfully conducted an administrative summons of Ctrip’s operating entity.

The investigation confirmed that Ctrip used service agreements, transaction rules, and technical means to impose unreasonable restrictions on transactions and prices within the platform.

④ On November 21, 2025, the Yunnan Province Tourism and Homestay Industry Association announced it would initiate collective rights protection against Ctrip and others for suspected abuse of market dominance.

The association received multiple complaints from member units, alleging that Ctrip and other platforms used their market dominance to implement “choice of two” clauses, unilaterally raise commissions, set unfair trading conditions, and block traffic, among other unfair competition behaviors.

04

Antitrust Investigation Still Ongoing

From the cases of summons, notifications, and penalties across various regions, it’s clear that the most common violations among platforms like Ctrip are abuse of market dominance, “choice of two,” and interference with normal merchant operations.

Platforms should leverage their traffic and technological advantages to help merchants improve efficiency. However, the reality is that Ctrip profits immensely from these advantages, while merchants suffer…

Ctrip previously engaged in live streaming for a period. Vice President Sun Tianxu once said that the profit margin for travel products is very thin, and most live-streaming sales focus on high-margin products. Ctrip’s goal is not just profit but industry empowerment.

While Ctrip’s profits are secured, the empowerment aspect is questionable.

Look at these figures:

In 2024, Ctrip’s revenue was 53.3 billion yuan, with a net profit attributable to the parent exceeding 17 billion yuan. In 2025, revenue reached 62.4 billion yuan, a 17% increase; net profit attributable to the parent was 33.3 billion yuan, nearly doubling year-on-year.

In contrast, 11 listed hotel companies in A-shares had a combined revenue of only 30.7 billion yuan and a net profit of less than 1.8 billion yuan in 2024.

The gap is staggering…

Despite repeated notifications and summons across regions, issues with Ctrip persist. It’s no longer just about notifications or summons.

On January 14, this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation announced that, based on prior investigations, Ctrip Group was under antitrust investigation for suspected abuse of market dominance.

According to the Anti-Monopoly Law, violations such as forming and implementing monopoly agreements can result in confiscation of illegal gains and fines ranging from 1% to 10% of the previous year’s sales.

After the investigation, Ctrip publicly responded that it would actively cooperate with regulators, fully implement regulatory requirements, and work with industry partners to build a sustainable market environment.

Currently, the antitrust investigation into Ctrip remains unresolved.