Chinese online travel services provider Trip.com plummeted by almost 22 percent in Hong Kong on Thursday after Beijing initiated an antitrust investigation into the firm and became the worst-performing company in the Hang Seng index.
The fall draws the stock towards the most negative day in Hong Kong since its listing in April 2021. Stocks had dropped 17 percent on Wednesday in New York.
According to a CNBC translation of the statement in Mandarin, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation stated on late Wednesday that it was investigating Trip.com due to “suspected abuse of its dominant market position and monopolistic practices.”
Trip.com is the biggest online travel operator in Asia in terms of market capitalization and one of the biggest in the world. The company owns stakes in UK flight aggregator Skyscanner, Indian travel company MakeMyTrip, and numerous Chinese travel companies.
In its statement, Trip.com said that it would “actively cooperate” with the investigation, and its business operation would continue normally.
SAMR has also seen the investigation of a high-profile case with the Chinese tech giant Alibaba in the year 2021, fining the company a record of 18.2 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) after it was discovered that the company engaged in monopolistic activities.
The investigation of Trip.com is anticipated as China tourism is projected to skyrocket this year, and travel marketing and technology company China Trading Desk predicts that mainland Chinese tourists will spend approximately 165 million to 175 million cross-border trips in 2026, compared to its projection of 155 million last year.
However, the Chinese New Year holiday, which witnesses the travelling of hundreds of millions of people back to their hometowns, will be observed between February 15 and 23.
Travel consultancy firm Dragon Trail International estimated that there would be 501 million Chinese travelling domestically in the Chinese New Year holiday period in 2025, an increase of 5.9 percent year-on-year. The tourism expenditure in the period was 6.77 billion yuan, was up by 7 percent.
