Tailor-made travel

So, to help business travelers, Ctrip also helps with administrative requirements for reimbursement, like price comparisons, contracts and invoices.

Giving details of the kinds of requests Ctrip receives, Liu Zheng, a product manager with Ctrip, says company tours often have specific aims liking increasing internal cohesion, which requires customizers to plan trips to realize those purposes.

"So, a company might want to make a trip to Japan to show its employees the Japanese service philosophy or management. So, trip suppliers have to know how to meet the demand."

In 2017, 60 percent of company tours were domestic and 40 percent were overseas.

Speaking about the kinds of skills trip suppliers need to have, Liu says the ability to source resources to accommodate relatively big groups of business travelers is important

"For example, you have to make sure the hotels and restaurants have adequate capacity," he says.

For now, roughly 91 percent of business customization orders can have their requirements met by suppliers on Ctrip. And all costs are broken down into hotel, flight ticket and other expenses to ensure transparency, so customers could make an informed choice.

Artificial intelligence is also being used to monitor negotiations between tour supplier and corporate customers.

"And we intervene only if the customer dissatisfaction reaches a tipping point," says Liu, who is now working to extend the use of AI to itinerary recommendation and price comparison.

Luo Shanshan, the sales director of Beijing Baina International Travel Service Co is very optimistic about the trip customization business.

Luo, whose company has arranged trips for Siemens and Daikin, says: "Corporate clients are more likely to purchase services from you again once you become their supplier."

She says that usually a company stays with her agency for four to five years.

"This is because communication improves, as we better understand their preferences."

Corporate customization business now makes up more than 65 percent of her agency's business transactions.

Speaking about the future, she says: "We believe that traditional travel products, including group travel, will no longer satisfy the needs of travelers, who are those born in the 1980s and 90s, so tour customization will gain more ground."