On the morning of January 19, CTA and Ctrip held a news conference in Shanghai to launch their co-built “Joint Tourism Big Data Lab”. CTA President Dai Bin and Ctrip CEO Jane Jie Sun addressed the conference and awarded the plaque to the lab.

CTA President Dai Bin said in his speech that big data pumped new blood for tourism innovation and lent a new pillar to region-based tourism and the state strategy of building a strong tourism country, so the lab would be a useful path and brand-new platform for tourism big data resource transformation. He also noted that widespread participation among market players like Ctrip was indispensable if tourism big data transformation from concept and theory to productivity was to be realized. As he said, market mechanism could not play a decisive role in tourism big data development until professional platforms like joint labs and training bases were established. To turn joint labs into engines for business R&D and industrial upgrading, the path to take was one that eyed solving problems, combined macro- and micro- data and drew upon both market experience and professional studies.

Ctrip CEO Jane Jie Sun said that starting the lab marked a milestone for Ctrip as well as CTA. Going forward, Ctrip would take the opportunity to employ its advantages in tourism big data and data mining and analysis. Arm in arm with CTA, it would dig up deeper value of tourism big data, nudge China’s tourism industry towards digital management, and support smart tourism cities to build a fire-new tourism ecosphere.