Shares in Trip.com, the online travel site that has emerged as one of the China’s most successful private sector start-ups in the past quarter century, climbed to their highest Nasdaq close of 2025 on Thursday after the company said growth in bookings in the April-June quarter lifted revenue and profit.
Trip.com closed at $75.03 at the Nasdaq on Thursday – its best since December, before falling back by 1.7% on Friday. Its U.S.-traded shares were still more than 13% higher than a week earlier, and have gained nearly 60% in the past year. In Hong Kong Stock Exchange trading, Trip.com closed up by 4.7% on Friday to HK$578, also its highest finish since December.
Trip.com, then known as Ctrip, was founded in 1999 as a disruptor in China’s travel services industry, entering at a time when the field was dominated by offline state-owned companies. Beginning with hotel rooms, it began an Expedia-like online expansion into airline tickets, corporate travel services and even railway tickets. From its $250,000 in start-up capital, Trip.com’s market capitalization at the Nasdaq was $48 billion on Friday. That compares with $26 billion for Expedia.
Trip.com said on Wednesday net revenue in the second quarter of 2025 rose by 16% year-on-year to $2.1 billion, helped by stronger travel demand, particularly during holidays. Accommodation reservation revenue for the second quarter rose by more than a fifth to $869 million, it said. Inbound travel bookings surged by more than 100% year-over-year, while outbound hotel and air ticket bookings topped 120% of the pre-COVID level for the same period in 2019. Those gains helped to lift net profit by more than a quarter to $676 million in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to company figures.
"Our strategy focuses on capturing growing demand from every demographic, with special attention to inbound travel,” CEO Jane Sun said in a statement. Sun ranked No. 16 on a list of China’s top businesswomen published by Forbes China earlier this year.
The company’s co-founders include billionaire venture capitalist Neil Shen, currently the founding and managing partner of HongShan (formerly known as Sequoia China), and Ji Qi, chairman of U.S. listed hotel company H World. Trip.com holds stakes in a number of hotels and resorts, including Atour, whose Nasdaq-traded shares have more then doubled in the past year. Shareholders include Chinese search engine Baidu, which owns about 7% of Trip.com and funds associated with BlackRock, 5.3%.
Trip.com over the years has built up a network of more than 1.7 million hotels and flights from over 600 airlines, according to company figures. The site is available in 24 languages and offers 35 local currencies, Trip.com says.
One European country notably looking forward to an increase in Chinese tourists: Italy. Milano Cortina will host the 2026 Winter Olympics, and winter sports have become increasing popular in China since Beijing hosted in the winter games in 2022.