Asia-Pacific Power List 2023: Bo Sun, Trip.com

Bo Sun

Chief marketing officer
Trip.com Group
China
Returning member

Despite facing strong headwinds that hit the Chinese travel industry, Bo Sun kept his spirits and company afloat through the pandemic. After bucking the negative trends in the last three years, he is ready to tackle new consumer demands about safety, sustainability, and reliability as the travel sector rebounds. No surprise then that he is making his third appearance on Campaign’s Power List.

In 2020, Trip.com Group launched its pilot Travel Revival V Plan, investing RMB 1 billion in a recovery fund to help the industry battle pandemic pressures. In addition, sun recently announced a new iteration of the initiative focusing on reviving and revitalising the Chinese travel industry.

To reinvent the brand value of Ctrip, Trip.com Group’s most prominent Chinese language platform, Sun has been working overtime, collaborating with destinations to create a full range of ‘reunion’ experience products using the platform’s comprehensive supply chain resources. In addition, Trip.com also collaborated with Mastercard to develop new value-adds and unique consumer experiences. 

Tapping into the pent-up travel demand of Chinese consumers, Sun led Trip.com’s first post-pandemic social campaign, “Just Like That”. Collaborating with over 100 KOLs in markets across Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, the campaign hit upon the emotional aspects of travel, such as ‘reuniting’ with loved ones, while demonstrating the ease of using Trip.com for travel bookings.

In July 2022, Ctrip independently produced the travel documentary “Hit the Road" combining destination marketing and the platform’s unique new “Travel + Culture” content marketing model. The show garnered 120 million total views. Sun plans to extend this model to tourist destinations around the world as a solution to attracting Chinese travellers.

At the same time, Trip.com Group launched its Green Tourism Goals. The ambitious plan includes launching over 10,000 low-carbon travel products such as ‘green stays’, ‘green flights’, ‘green corporate travel’ and ‘green car rentals’ on the Ctrip platform.

Piggybacking on the optimistic signals from the government, Trip.com Group is building a global tourism data and resource-sharing platform, linking its brands, including Ctrip, to help international destinations connect with Chinese tourists again. In addition, the tech-driven travel service provider will open airline ticketing and hotel resources to travel agencies worldwide. 

It will help travel service providers package and sell their products online and help destinations to access the first cohorts of outbound Chinese tourists. In the long term, Sun sees the platform enabling real-time supply chain updates according to global traveller dynamics and product supply.