Trip.com Group (TCOM) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2022

September 21, 2022 8:00 p.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Hello and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Trip.com Group 2022 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] It is now pleasure to introduce Senior Director of Investor Relations, Michelle Qi. You may proceed.

Michelle Qi

Thank you. Good morning and good evening. Welcome to Trip.com Group’s second quarter of 2022 earnings conference call. Joining me today on the call are Mr. James Liang, Executive Chairman of the Board; Ms. Jane Sun, Chief Executive Officer; and Ms. Cindy Wang, Chief Financial Officer.

During this call, we will discuss our future outlook and performance, which are forward-looking statements made under Safe Harbor provision of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, our results may be materially different from the views expressed today. A number of potential risks and uncertainties are outlined in Trip.com Group’s public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trip.com Group does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law. James, Jane and Cindy will share our strategy and business updates, operating highlights and financial performance for the second quarter of 2022 as well as the outlook for the third quarter of 2022. After our prepared remarks, we will have a Q&A session.

With that, I will turn the call over to James. James, please.

James Liang

Thank you, Michelle. Thank you everyone for joining us our call today. In the second quarter of 2022 despite the challenging market environments in April and May, due to the outreach of Omicron and stricter pandemic control measures we are encouraged to see the strong release of pent-up demand in the back half of this quarter. While sporadic resurgence of COVID continues to disrupt the recovery of domestic travel in China. The effect of travelers’ sentiment has been fading, and the market has shown its resilience. Following the easing of the restrictions, we're seeing overall domestic channel book hotel booking, platform quickly rebounded and surpassed 2019 level at the end of June. Such trajectory continued as we entered the July with authorities adopt milder and more precise control measures.

On the international front, the global travel industry continued to its progress towards full recovery to 2000 pre-pandemic level, demand is staying strong despite the challenges facing the industry. In Q2, our revenues in Europe and US markets have already surpassed of 2019 level and that in our Asia Pacific markets are also rapidly growing, while pace of growth in the European market has moderated due to headwinds such as airline capacity shortage and labor strikes, our air reservations in Europe has been approaching the 2019 level and our hotel reservation in the same region increased by about 400% year-over-year. Travel activity to Asia- Pacific also rebounded with border reopening and further lifting of travel curbs and have started to recover faster than ever since the outbreak of COVID.