Trip.com Group (TCOM) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending September 30, 2022

December 14, 2022 7:00 p.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Trip.com Group 2022 Q3 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I’d now like to hand the call over to your first speaker today, Michelle Qi, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Michelle Qi

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Trip.com Group’s third 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 the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent 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 third quarter of 2022 as well as some outlook for the fourth quarter of 2022. After the 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 on the call today. In the third quarter, we are delighted to see strong performance in overseas markets and improvements in China domestic market, driven by robust travel summer demand and the relaxation for restrictions. Despite the impact of COVID’s resurgence since late August to which overshadowed the China domestic market, in the second half of the quarter, Trip.com Group continues to deliver better than market performance with our domestic hotel and air ticket revenues, both seeing positive year-over-year growth. In China, the adoption of more targeted and precise pandemic control measures in the third quarter has skewed a rise in air travel demand, reflecting the resilience of travel industry and Chinese customers’ strong demand for travel. Despite the resurgence COVID in the back half of the quarter, although China’s domestic hotel bookings in Q3 showed positive growth over last year and have almost fully recovered to the 2019 level. We are happy to see further optimization in the recent COVID policy adjustments. The new adjustments laid a solid foundation for the rebound of domestic travel and the recovery of cross-border travel.