Trip.com has faced regulatory scrutiny twice in just over a month, raising questions about why the company continues to operate its controversial "Price Adjustment Assistant" tool.

The online travel platform was first summoned by Guizhou Provincial Market Supervision Administration on August 5th, followed by another summons from Zhengzhou Market Supervision Bureau on September 17th.

According to reports, Trip.com violated Article 35 of the E-commerce Law of the People's Republic of China and Article 24 of the Interim Provisions on Network Anti-Unfair Competition. The violations involve using service agreements, transaction rules, and technical means to impose unreasonable restrictions on platform merchants' transactions and pricing.

The latest summons aims to urge the company to conduct comprehensive rectification and standardize its operations.

"Trip.com has faced continuous public opinion challenges this year, partly driven by competitive pressure," said an internal source at the company, attributing the issues to external competition.

In July this year, multiple hotel merchants in Zhengzhou reported that Trip.com had unilaterally modified their hotel room prices listed on the platform. Hotel operators claimed that Trip.com required them to activate a pricing tool called "Price Adjustment Assistant," which technically modifies hotel room prices and changes merchants' promotional discounts without their consent.

The "Price Adjustment Assistant" is described as an automated price-matching tool designed to maintain the platform's price advantage. It regularly scans competitor platforms for similar hotel products, monitoring price differences. When Trip.com's prices are found to be higher than competitors, the tool automatically reduces prices or enrolls hotel products in promotional activities.

Trip.com's significant bargaining power stems from its market dominance. Founded in 1999, the company has secured a leading position in the travel sector with a 56% market share after nearly three decades of development.

Despite continued competition in the travel sector from players like Meituan, Fliggy, Douyin, and JD.com, Trip.com's pricing mechanisms have already drawn merchant dissatisfaction, potentially creating opportunities for competitors to gain market share.

**Merchants Report "Price Adjustment Assistant"**

Zhengzhou Market Supervision Bureau issued a "Rectification Order" to Trip.com on September 4, 2025, requiring the company to complete rectification within specified timeframes.

The regulatory meeting demanded that Trip.com adhere to integrity principles, completely correct unreasonable restriction practices, fully respect merchants' autonomous operating rights, and thoroughly address issues including "forced activation and inability to opt out." The bureau will continue monitoring rectification progress and conduct compliance inspections to ensure full implementation of corporate responsibilities.

Trip.com previously responded publicly that the "Price Adjustment Assistant" helps hotels adapt to local market prices and improve their competitiveness. However, in practice, Trip.com uses this tool to control hotel pricing authority.

Commentary noted that as platforms become increasingly dominant, such "bullying behavior" has become a widespread phenomenon. Some platforms leverage traffic to pressure merchants while maintaining a "low-price image" to attract users, essentially benefiting at others' expense.

This behavior has been characterized as "algorithmic hegemony."

Numerous merchants have complained continuously about these practices. One complaint described how Trip.com signed "Price Adjustment Assistant" contracts without merchants' knowledge, effectively reducing their external selling prices, with multiple attempts to cancel proving unsuccessful. The complainant stated that original backend prices of 455 yuan were reduced to over 300 yuan by Trip.com, while 788 yuan prices were cut to over 500 yuan.

Multiple hotel operators reported that Trip.com uses technical means to modify hotel room prices and changes promotional discounts without merchant consent. Merchants compared the "Price Adjustment Assistant" to "a faucet that won't turn off" and "reopens itself after being closed," with complaints often going unanswered.

Merchants often "dare not withdraw, cannot withdraw, and find it difficult to withdraw."

This marks Trip.com's second summons within a month and a half. In August, Guizhou Provincial Market Supervision Administration summoned five travel platforms including Trip.com, Tongcheng, Douyin, Meituan, and Fliggy, requiring strict compliance with relevant laws and regulations to eliminate pricing irregularities and maintain a fair, orderly, and trustworthy market environment.

To become more discoverable by consumers, hotel merchants must achieve Gold or Premium merchant status on Trip.com. Gold merchants must price 5% below Meituan, while Premium merchants can only list exclusively on Trip.com without any pricing presence on competitors like Meituan.

These merchant tiers receive different traffic allocations, with display priority following: Premium, Gold, then non-certified merchants.

However, achieving Gold or Premium status requires paying higher commission rates. Current Trip.com commission rates typically range from 12%-20%, with Premium merchants paying 15%-20%, and some premium resources reaching 30%.

Legal expert Fu Jian from Henan Zejin Law Firm noted that the current relationship between Trip.com and hotel merchants involves both cooperation and competition. "While Trip.com provides important traffic channels for hotels, it also influences them through competitive ranking and commission structures. Some hotels' dependence on Trip.com's traffic limits their negotiating power, creating an unbalanced relationship."

**"Price Adjustment Assistant" Enhances Trip.com's Upstream Bargaining Power**

Trip.com uses the "Price Adjustment Assistant" to ensure competitive pricing, attracting consumers while monetizing this traffic advantage by selling it back to merchants.

Beyond Gold and Premium merchant programs, Trip.com offers additional traffic products including "Pyramid," "Cloud Ladder," "Competition Circle," and "Homepage Search." Merchants must purchase these products to rank higher in consumer searches. Multiple reports indicate that merchants experience significant order volume drops when they stop purchasing traffic products on Trip.com.

Industry analysis suggests that Trip.com uses the "Price Adjustment Assistant" and similar technical means to enforce price matching or secure lowest prices, aiming to expand its user base and further enhance upstream bargaining power, creating a cycle that amplifies scale advantages.

Currently, the hotel industry's core operational indicators continue declining. Facing pressure from both industry challenges and travel platforms, hotel enterprises experience intensified pressure.

According to the "2024 China Hotel Industry Development Report," national hotel count reached nearly 349,000 by end-2024, with total rooms at 17.64 million, representing year-over-year growth of 5.7% and 7.1% respectively. Despite scale expansion, key indicators declined: average RevPAR dropped to 118 yuan (down 9.7%), ADR fell to 199.9 yuan (down 5.8%), and occupancy rate reached only 58.8% (down 2.5 percentage points).

Individual company performance reflects this trend: BTG's Q2 RevPAR excluding light-management hotels dropped 4.1% to 165 yuan; Jin Jiang's full-service and limited-service hotel RevPAR declined 12.69% and 5% respectively in Q2; Huazhu China's Q2 RevPAR fell 3.8%; and Junteng's directly-operated stores saw Q1 RevPAR drop 15.3% and Q2 decline 7.03%.

While hotel industry core metrics decline, Trip.com remains resilient. The company has shown strong performance over the past two years, with 2023 and 2024 revenues of 44.5 billion and 53.3 billion yuan respectively, and net profits of 9.9 billion and 17.2 billion yuan.

In the first half of 2025, Trip.com achieved revenue of 28.7 billion yuan and net profit of approximately 9.2 billion yuan, equivalent to daily earnings of about 50.83 million yuan. During the same period, Beijing's 1,613 hotels generated total profits of 59.8 million yuan - meaning Trip.com's daily earnings nearly match the six-month total profits of over 1,600 Beijing hotels.

Commentary emphasizes that platforms, merchants, and consumers should form an ecological community - a stable triangle. However, when one party faces severe unfair treatment and cannot sustain operations, this triangle becomes unstable and may collapse, leaving no winners.

"If hotels are forced to reduce service quality due to cost pressures, it will indeed affect consumer experience and damage healthy market circulation. Sustainable business models require win-win outcomes for platforms, hotels, and consumers. Platforms should take responsibility for maintaining industry ecology while pursuing commercial interests, avoiding excessive compression of partners' profit margins," Fu Jian stated.

**Opportunities for Competitors?**

Trip.com, founded at the end of the last century, developed rapidly as an OTA platform. At that time, Booking was established in the US, initiating the OTA internet booking model for the travel industry and ushering in the digital hotel era. Trip.com was founded in 1999 and began gradually penetrating the travel industry in 2000.

Subsequently, companies entering the travel sector emerged rapidly, including Fliggy, Tongcheng, Qunar, eLong, and others, with Meituan also beginning to layout travel services.

This sector has never lacked new players. In June this year, JD.com released an "Open Letter to All Hotel Operators," officially announcing its entry into the travel sector. JD.com first offered merchants preferential terms, with hotels participating in the "JD Hotel PLUS Member Program" enjoying up to three years of zero commission.

To attract more merchants, JD.com highlighted its advantages: over 800 million high-spending users nationwide, deep cooperation with over 30,000 large enterprises and 8 million small and medium enterprises, with JD.com users and partners highly overlapping with four-star and above hotels' main customer groups. JD.com is also a first-tier platform for domestic local life service traffic, with massive user high-frequency consumption generating additional travel and tourism demand.

After entering the travel sector, JD.com has begun collaborating with hotel companies. For example, JD.com reached strategic cooperation with Jin Jiang Hotels, with both parties conducting deep cooperation in travel services, supply chain coordination, and dining consumption scenarios.

"We don't want to drag hotels into price wars, forcing hotel operators to further reduce prices and choose among three platforms," Liu Qiangdong stated at a recent meeting, indicating that when profit margins are compressed, the ecosystem suffers. JD.com will promote hotel industry development through new models, expected to be announced by year-end.

Besides JD.com, short video companies like Douyin are also strengthening travel business efforts. Recently, Douyin partnered with Huazhu Group, Hyatt Group, Atour Group and other hotel groups to launch member experience packages including booking discounts, new customer exclusive prices, and brand gold card prices.

iiMedia Research CEO and Chief Analyst Zhang Yi explained that major platforms entering existing market competition like travel services is understandable. First, domestic consumption is gradually transitioning from material consumption to spiritual, cultural, entertainment, and health consumption, with consumption level and tier improvements being major future trends.

Zhang Yi noted that travel services represent a crucial sector in this "upgrade" process with enormous market scale, becoming the main reason attracting various giants to enter. Second, travel business synergies are very evident - whether for Meituan, JD.com, Alibaba, or Douyin platforms, travel services can create significant synergies with existing businesses while enriching original ecosystems and providing users with more choices and value-added services.

However, despite numerous players in the travel sector, Trip.com maintains absolute dominance. Data shows Trip.com's 2024 travel market GWV share reached 56%, with Tongcheng and Meituan ranking second and third at 15% and 13% respectively, Fliggy and Douyin accounting for 8% and 3%, and other players sharing the remaining 5%.

But facing repeated regulatory summons and merchant dissatisfaction, will Trip.com's position be shaken?

"This summons may have a regulatory effect on Trip.com's market strategy in the short term, but its impact on market share requires observing subsequent rectification results," Fu Jian stated. "JD.com, Meituan and other platforms have advantages in local life services and traffic, while Douyin and Xiaohongshu excel in content-driven traffic. If they can combine their characteristics to create differentiated services, they indeed have opportunities to capture market share."

"However, the hotel booking industry has strong user habits and supply chain barriers, so pattern changes may be gradual. Emerging platforms need continuous investment in service guarantees and supply chain construction to form real competitiveness."

Regulatory intervention signals the beginning of a "strong supervision era" for the online travel industry. China Enterprise Capital Alliance Vice Chairman Bai Wenxi believes that if Trip.com cannot quickly establish transparent, auditable pricing mechanisms, its profit model and market valuation will face systemic challenges. Hotel merchants expect not just turning off the "Price Adjustment Assistant" and canceling "choose one of two" practices, but for the entire travel industry to return to rationality - returning pricing power to merchants and choice to consumers.

With JD.com and Douyin entering the market and increasing regulatory scrutiny, the future landscape of the travel market is being restructured. How platforms balance their profits with merchant rights and find equilibrium between unfair competition and healthy development will be key to the industry's long-term development.