Ctrip Product Analysis Report

As Chinese residents' income gradually increases and their emphasis on tourism and leisure has greatly increased, residents' demand for travel has grown rapidly, and Ctrip is one of the most commonly used travel apps. This article analyzes the new version of Ctrip products and the development direction of the tourism market from three aspects: experience purpose, product information, and product experience. I hope it will be helpful to you.

1. Purpose of the experience

Conduct peer product experience from the perspective of the five elements of user experience, use this as a guide for subsequent work and learning, further improve product capabilities and industry foresight, and use this to understand the impact of the epidemic on the tourism industry and analyze the development direction of the tourism market.

2. Product Information

1. Product Name: Ctrip Travel
2. Version number: v8.42.2
3. Experience model: iPhone11
4. Experience environment: IOS 13.6
5. Experience time: 2021.11.27

3. Product Experience

1. Strategic level

A good product must first have its own strategic positioning. Due to the wide variety of personal attributes, if you want a good user experience, it must be based on a target user group with certain fixed needs. No product can cover every aspect of the user.

(1) User needs

Demand description: Before traveling, users should learn about the destination attractions, refer to information and strategies to arrange the itinerary, and book various transportation and services in the itinerary at a relatively suitable price, including but not limited to air tickets, train tickets, bus tickets, admission tickets, catering, hotels, specialties, etc., to achieve proper booking and arrangement of the itinerary. The industry refers to this as taking into account all aspects of "food, accommodation, travel, shopping and entertainment". Please refer to the common process below.

User Analysis According to iResearch's "2021 China Online Travel Platform User Insight Research Report", the basic attributes of current travel users are as follows:

• In terms of age: the average age of users is 35.6 years old, and users aged 25-50 account for nearly 80%, which is the main age group of users.
• Gender: Gender distribution is balanced, with males accounting for a relatively large proportion of 56.9%.
• City distribution: Users in first-tier, new first-tier, and second-tier cities account for 78%, and high-tier cities have the largest number of tourist user groups.

(2) Product objectives

Ctrip Product Positioning Product Overview: Online ticketing service company (OTA) , founded in 1999 and headquartered in Shanghai. It has a complete industrial ecosystem and directly provides agency sales and advertising services to hotels, airlines, railways, tourist attraction management, insurance and other companies, providing consumers with a one-stop service platform covering all travel services such as travel, accommodation, insurance, and tourism.

• Positioning: OTA+Platform
• Core functions: three booking functions, hotel booking, transportation booking, travel and vacation booking
• Expanded functions: travel guide, travel insurance, food shopping, car rental, foreign currency exchange and other travel-related services
• Solgan: With Ctrip in hand, you can travel at any time

Ctrip's major events :

• In October 1999, Ctrip.com was officially launched in Shanghai.
• In March 2002, it acquired Beijing Coast Aviation Services Co., Ltd.
• It was officially listed on the NASDAQ in the United States in December 2003, setting a record for the highest increase on the opening day in the past three years.
• On May 8, 2010, the Ctrip Information Technology Building with more than 12,000 call seats was officially completed in Nantong Economic and Technological Development Zone, Jiangsu Province.
• On January 12, 2011, Ctrip formally signed a cooperation agreement with "Diancanxiaomishu", a well-known catering reservation service provider in Shanghai, and Ctrip made a strategic investment in Diancanxiaomishu. Both parties will give full play to their respective advantages and jointly expand the Chinese catering reservation market in depth. This cooperation will promote the continuous improvement of China's catering reservation service capabilities and travel value-added services.
• On October 26, 2015, Ctrip and Qunar merged, and after the merger, Ctrip will own 45% of Qunar's shares. The merger between Ctrip and Qunar will take the form of Baidu selling its shares in Qunar and then taking control of Ctrip. Baidu will own 25% of Ctrip's shares.
• On February 14, 2018, Ctrip announced the official launch of its shared car rental business.
• On April 25, 2018, Ctrip announced a strategic investment with supersonic aircraft manufacturer Boom Supersonic to help Boom accelerate the development of its Mach 2.2 supersonic passenger aircraft.
• In February 2019, Baidu announced that it had reached in-depth cooperation with Ctrip. Baidu Cloud will use AI capabilities to tailor scenario- and business-oriented solutions for Ctrip based on the characteristics of the tourism industry.
• On May 27, 2019, OYO Hotels announced a strategic partnership with Ctrip.

2. Scope layer

The selection of features mainly considers the industry, target audience, competing products, and company resources.

(1) Market analysis

Online travel market analysis:

At the beginning of 2020, the emergence of the "black swan" event of the new crown epidemic did have a huge impact on the tourism industry, and the overall transaction volume dropped dramatically.

Since the second half of 2020, with the improvement of the domestic epidemic situation, the online tourism market has entered a stage of orderly recovery. With the recovery of travel demand during the Golden Week and short holidays, the market recovery trend is clear.

OTA market share:

With the rapid development of business models such as airlines' "increasing direct sales and reducing agency sales", hotel groups' establishment of membership systems, and online booking of scenic spot tickets through mini-programs, the proportion of online direct sales has increased rapidly. In 2020, the proportion of direct sales in the online travel market exceeded 30%, and the overall market has formed a competitive landscape of direct sales by travel companies and distribution by travel agents.

China OTA rankings:

In China, the Ctrip system represented by Ctrip and Qunar continues to operate at a high level with a significant leading advantage. At the same time, market competition is fierce. Meituan and Tongcheng are catching up with Fliggy and are challenging Ctrip products.

Global OTA rankings:

The global tourism market is divided into three parts, among which Ctrip has the highest business recovery rate due to the Chinese government's "zero tolerance" epidemic prevention and control support.

(2) Target audience: Ctrip travel user positioning

• People with middle income and above
• Business travel users
• High-quality travel needs

Ctrip's main users are middle-aged people with peak spending power, with the highest average customer spending among OTAs, but their future spending potential is relatively weak.

(3) Main competitors

Ctrip's main competitors are Meituan, which ranks second in OTA market share, and Tongcheng-Elong, which ranks fourth. In particular, Meituan's in-store hotel and travel revenue was boosted by the epidemic in the second quarter of 2020, and low-end hotels rose, surpassing Ctrip for the first time and becoming the number one in the OTA industry.

(4) Functional scope

Three core functions (living, traveling, and sightseeing):

1. Hotel reservation: Ctrip's product positioning is to have a hotel reservation service center. Users can select location, check-in time, price, etc. to search, choose hotels, homestays and other types of rooms that suit them, and can participate in various online discount activities.
2. Transportation reservation: You can select travel time, departure place, destination, etc. to search, and choose the air tickets, train tickets, bus tickets, boat tickets, car rental and car service that suits you.
3. Travel and vacation reservations: You can make travel itineraries, book various travel services based on news, strategies and other information, and even get customized services based on your needs.

Long tail function analysis:

1. Before traveling: visa preparation, foreign currency exchange, insurance, WiFi, financial services, etc.
2. During travel: food reservations, guides, shopping, etc.
3. After the trip: itinerary sharing, travel photography, online customer service, etc.

3. Structural layer

After the scope layer determines the product positioning and functional specifications, the structure layer is used to design the process through which users can meet their needs and consider where they can go after completing their tasks.

(1) Information Architecture

Ctrip Travel APP current product function architecture:

Ctrip APP Iterative Analysis collects historical version information from Qimai Data Network and obtains the following contents of all online versions from V5.9 to the present:

Overall, Ctrip’s version iteration goals are clear, which can be understood in conjunction with the APP download volume chart below.

1. The first stage (2014-2017.9): At the time when mobile Internet was emerging, we continuously developed new business segments and functional divisions, refined product functions, expanded product categories, consolidated our business scope as the leader of OTA, and shaped our brand reputation, laying the foundation for subsequent promotion and operation.
2. The second stage (September 2017-October 2018): By continuously attracting new users through promotions and large subsidies, new users were attracted and retained, increasing the number of APP downloads and sticky users.
3. The third stage (November 2018 to present): The number of APP downloads dropped sharply, reaching the bottleneck of attracting new users. We actively changed our thinking and focused on activity and retention, focusing on content and finance respectively. In terms of content, rigid transactions could not arouse fantasies of a better life and interest in play, so we gradually transformed into a content sharing platform and created the ucg community; in finance, we actively cooperated with banks and lending institutions to increase profit points, explore new profit models, and purchase payment licenses to further reduce transaction costs.

(2) Interaction Design

The analysis is mainly focused on three core booking functions: hotel booking, transportation (air ticket) booking and travel and vacation booking.

Hotel reservation main process:

Ctrip's hotel booking process is the standard OTA process , with a total of 8 steps, which is longer than the hotel group or single store direct sales process.

There are two core reasons for the high number of steps:

1. OTA has a wide range of categories and services, and the display of each project needs to be nested in the process.
2. In addition, Ctrip has been serving in the industry for more than 20 years and has generated many ways to play. The same hotel physical room type will output a room type for sale depending on the gameplay.

In such a complex information environment, users will receive more invalid information because they will only stay in one room at a time. Based on this user logic, Ctrip has been continuously optimizing its search engine, trying its best to prioritize and set as default the room types that best meet user needs, so that users can forget the impact of the process length and enjoy the pleasure of clicking the next step as much as they want, avoiding interruptions to the process.

Main process of air ticket booking:

Ctrip's air ticket booking process is the standard OTA process, with a total of 9 steps, which is longer than the airline website and APP direct sales process.

The core reason for the large number of steps is mainly due to the increase in service selection pages. Ctrip hopes to solve small transportation problems for customers in the large transportation process to make the flight journey coherent, which is also an advantage of OTA. Therefore, the increase in this step is a highlight of Ctrip. However, Ctrip still needs to "improve quality and reduce prices" in airport pick-up and car rental services. It is generally reflected that there is a certain gap compared with similar software such as Didi Taxi and Shenzhou Car Rental.

Main process of travel and vacation booking:

Ctrip's travel and vacation booking process is the standard process for online travel agencies, with a total of 9-10 steps. In addition, online competition from domestic travel agencies does not pose a threat, so Ctrip's travel and vacation process is basically relatively short.

However, vacation travel does not put search first like the other two booking processes.

Because in the current context of decreasing tourism growth, tourists are discouraged by the tiredness of traveling and the rip-offs they suffer. Current travel routes must be based on user reviews and recommendations from old customers. This is the form of content recommendation that Ctrip is now implementing in the entire APP design, using content recommendations to make users interested in and confident in the destination.

Interaction between modules:

Each module contains recommendations for other categories. Different modules correspond to different products and themes, but they also attract each other.

This corresponds to an important design concept of the Ctrip app, which is to help tourists solve the "food, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping and entertainment" in their itinerary, recommend all possible needs in the itinerary to our customers, and there will be appropriate time and pages to undertake them. This is the accumulation of more than 20 years of service.

Of course, I personally think that there is still room for improvement in the recommendation conversion rate, and some recommendations are still redundant. After all, after a long period of service, what is accumulated is not only high-quality information and resources, but also a lot of redundant content.

4. Framework layer

After considering the interaction process and information architecture, you need to consider the specific interface design of each page, including which controls, icons, text information, etc. This is the content of the framework layer.

Divided into three categories:

1. Interface Design
2. Navigation design
3. Information Design

(1) Interface design The homepage interface function design has been revised many times

Here we mainly focus on the differences between the two most recent homepages to present Ctrip’s actions and explorations in product direction.

(2) Navigation design In the last two revisions, the navigation area has undergone the following changes:

Adding a new community and deleting travel photography : This shows Ctrip’s huge transformation from an OTA transaction-based product to a UGC community-based product, and transforming personal travel diaries into interactive communities, which is also a challenge to the travel guide APP Mafengwo.

Customer service becomes messaging and moves up to No. 3 : This reflects the shift from one-way customer service to two-way chat tools.

(3) Information Design In the last two revisions, the following changes can be noticed in the information design of the homepage:

The first screen displays more information partitions, and most models can see the recommended area at a glance, thereby driving Ctrip's distribution of content and encouraging users to continue scrolling down.

The content of the King Kong area is divided into pages and columns to improve the efficiency of information communication. More categories are displayed in a smaller area, and more functions are divided into left and right pages to facilitate easy interaction for exploratory users.

The marketing recommendation area has undergone a major revision, and its status has been raised above the advertising area. It has a stronger ability to attract traffic, and the marketing function of a single product has been removed. It is more about mobilizing user interest and going to different marketing special pages.

5. Presentation Layer

Frame layer design is similar to low-fidelity prototype. The presentation layer is similar to a non-interactive high-fidelity prototype page.

The presentation layer focuses on visual communication and is a direct sensory stimulation to the user's vision.

The presentation layer is where users first focus. Here, content, functionality, and aesthetics come together to produce a final design.

Complete all goals of other levels while satisfying the user's sensory experience.

At the same time, before users use the APP, the application market, which is the first place to convey the APP’s performance, is also a place that must be paid attention to.

(1) Visual design

The analysis is conducted from four aspects: clear structure, beauty, consistency, and unity of visual and user experience.

1. Clear structure : The latest version has a clearer homepage design structure than the previous version, especially the removal of redundant information in the King Kong area and the addition of new color blocks, which allow customers to clearly understand the main functions of the product. The layout of the bottom menu bar highlights the changes in Ctrip’s product direction, allowing users to quickly see the community module and highlight the structure.
2. Aesthetics : The overall color is white, with a partial blue base to highlight the brand characteristics. The King Kong area on the homepage is highlighted with orange, blue, purple, green and yellow as the background. The warm colors give a warm and comfortable feeling, which is in line with the concept of travel. Function buttons are equipped with specially designed icons that suit the user's perception
3. Consistency : Each area has its own unique logo and font, which can be quickly distinguished, with clear layers and contrast. Orange represents hotel categories, blue represents air ticket categories, and the special offer area and word-of-mouth list are divided into different fonts.
4. Unity of visual and user experience : The unity of visual and user experience is good. The main function font is white, the secondary function font is black, the content description font is gray, the labels and discount content are orange and equipped with some animations to increase influence and attract user attention. The clickable description of the function is blue.

(2) User evaluation in the application market

Obtain user reviews from the App Store and various Android app markets through the Qimai data website.

App Store:

The comprehensive score is 4.8 points, with a total of 1.54 million reviews, including 1.38 million five-star reviews, a positive rate of about 90%. The overall user evaluation of the product is good, and there are relatively few negative reviews.

Android app stores:

The overall score is 4.2 points, with a total of 330,000 reviews. The overall user reviews of the product are less than those of Apple. This may be because Ctrip's user positioning is biased towards high-end, and high-end users often choose Apple devices, so there is some overlap between the two users;

In addition, the score is lower than that of Apple, which may be caused by the fact that Android users make more changes during travel. Let’s take a look at the negative review analysis in detail.

Negative review analysis:

The reasons for sorting out the negative reviews of products are mainly concentrated on:

• Problems with ticket purchase, refund, exchange and financial payment of large transportation products. The date of large transportation ticket purchase is inconsistent with the selected log, which is suspected to be a bug;
• Users complained about the refund and exchange service's refund and rebooking time and payment method;
• Recently, the default options for various financial instruments have been introduced so that customers can choose them unconsciously.

4. Summary and Analysis

1. Market trends

Based on the "2020 Summer Family Travel Popularity Report" released by Ctrip in mid-August, the development direction of the tourism market is summarized and analyzed.

1. Family travel still ranks first in travel, accounting for 34% of the market.
2. Group tours are still the main mode of travel, accounting for 59% of the market, but independent travel and customized tours also attract more users, with the proportion of independent travel increasing to 20%.
3. Night travel has become a new choice for the public, and theme parks are the most popular themes for night travel, accounting for 45.7%.
4. Homestay bookings have picked up, self-driving tours have become a new travel trend, and the number of inquiries about hotel self-driving tour parking spaces increased 2.5 times in 2020.
5. Booking is available upon arrival, with customers checking in on the same day accounting for up to 32%.

2. Product change trends

According to the changes in market and user demands, future travel will be more inclined towards "freely customized" products, with a higher proportion of young users preferring to freely design routes and pursuing free time arrangements.

The product needs to help users better understand the characteristics and facilities of the route, and even present high-quality tourism resources to users, and provide a series of booking services after giving the plan.

3. Product design suggestions

Recommendations based on this change:

A one-click purchase (shopping cart) function has been added to travel itineraries. In the past, there was no shopping cart function in the tourism market because most tourism consumption was offline and could only be single-item consumption, such as one person could only stay in one room. But with an itinerary, multiple purchases can be made in the time dimension, such as one person can stay in a room in Hotel A today and in Hotel B tomorrow. This can simplify many user operations and allow batch orders.

Add more high-quality content displays, and display high-quality content in important positions on each destination product page, such as the ticket product details page, route product details page, etc., to continuously give users confidence and attraction.

Some page interactions are too heavy on guiding users to provide more services, involving the main process, such as filling out a form to guide users to purchase insurance and adding a service purchase page for large transportation. Consider whether default values ​​can be differentiated according to user types. For example, users who have purchased insurance will be automatically charged for purchasing insurance, while users who have not purchased insurance will be automatically unchecked and will not be reminded again.

By Lee Kwee

Source: Product Manager Lee