On April 23, Trip.com Business Travel held its inaugural Global Business Travel Partner Conference in Shanghai, officially unveiling the comprehensive landscape of its "Trip.com Business Travel AI Ecosystem" and the "2025-2026 Business Travel Management Market White Paper." Disclosed data revealed that the average cross-border order volume for Chinese companies expanding overseas has maintained a growth rate of over 30% for three consecutive years. Outbound business travel destinations are accelerating their shift from traditional markets like North America and Western Europe to Belt and Road Initiative countries. Vietnam, from a high base of orders, achieved 100% year-on-year growth, jumping to the second position in destination rankings.
The AI ecosystem debut featured seven AI Agents designed to reconstruct the entire business travel management process. Trip.com Business Travel CEO Song Tao introduced the AI ecosystem panorama covering the full process from travel and management to procurement. It includes seven AI Agents for travel inquiries, itinerary booking, travel approval, travel insights, compliance and risk control, financial settlement, and resource procurement. For travel managers, the approval Agent can automatically assess trip compliance using multi-dimensional information, significantly reducing repetitive tasks. For employees, the AI assistant "Cheng Xingtu" allows users to inquire about corporate travel and visa policies via conversation, automatically initiate approvals, complete itinerary planning, and place orders with one click, shortening the entire booking process to 1-2 minutes and improving efficiency nearly tenfold.
The powerful AI is backed by deep industry experience. Leveraging the Trip.com Group's 30 years in the hospitality and travel industry and its own 20 years of business travel management practice, Trip.com Business Travel connects directly with global mainstream travel channels. It integrates practical data from over 1 million enterprises and 60 million travelers, supplemented by a professional destination knowledge base and global service assurance SOPs, forming a leading AI knowledge base foundation in China's business travel industry.
Song Tao stated, "Trip.com Business Travel has been managing business travel for 20 years. Now, we want to use AI to take business travel a step further. We firmly believe we can help every enterprise manage their travel effectively with AI." To this end, Trip.com Business Travel is opening its AI capabilities to enterprises, allowing them to embed functions like travel policy Q&A and itinerary planning into their own systems. Currently, Trip.com Business Travel has opened AI capabilities on its developer platform and achieved capability sharing with 15 enterprises. Simultaneously, it established the "Business Travel AI Bee Alliance," inviting corporate clients and ecosystem partners to jointly guide AI R&D direction.
Outbound trends are shifting towards Belt and Road Initiative countries, with SME outbound orders growing by 78%. According to the white paper data, since the recovery of cross-border business travel in 2023, the average cross-border order volume for Chinese companies going overseas has maintained over 30% growth for three consecutive years. With the national implementation of the "Special Service Action for SME Overseas Expansion," the number of SMEs conducting outbound travel increased 31% year-on-year in 2025, and outbound order volume grew 78%. Looking at changes in the share of outbound travel destinations, corporate cross-border travel is significantly shifting from traditional developed markets like North America, Western Europe, and East Asia to broader Belt and Road Initiative countries in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia. The purpose of corporate overseas travel is shifting from "research and inspection" to "dispatching personnel to execute projects," reflecting the accelerated global dispersion of China's industrial chain.
Regarding destinations, Vietnam's importance is prominent: its ranking jumped from 5th in 2024 to 2nd, with order volume increasing 100% year-on-year. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam became the most notable growth poles, driven by deepened ASEAN cooperation and industrial chain relocation. The spillover of manufacturing has created frequent, rigid demand for business travel. To strengthen localized services, Trip.com Business Travel deepened its cooperation with Vietnam's largest TMC, Blue Sky Travel (BST), combining its technology, management capabilities, and local experience. It also collaborated with a hotel expert team to create online management solutions for local resources for clients, solving challenges related to online hotel booking and unified settlement payments.
Pain points in overseas business travel include a 24% flight change rate and 59% of international hotels lacking free cancellation; Trip.com introduces a safety-net guarantee. Song Tao revealed, "The change rate for international flight tickets is as high as 24%, compared to just 17% domestically. During overseas trips, clients are more likely to be unable to check into their originally booked hotel due to flight delays. Statistics show 59% of international hotels do not offer free cancellation policies. Among these non-refundable bookings, only 25% can be successfully canceled after coordination." Addressing this pain point, Trip.com Business Travel launched the "Overseas Carefree Travel" policy. Its core safeguard is: if an employee cannot check into their booked hotel due to a flight change or airport transfer delay, Trip.com Business Travel will provide a hotel cancellation guarantee, ensuring employees can confidently cancel or change plans when their itinerary changes unexpectedly.