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Ctrip recently announced that starting from March 10, 2026, the "AI Business Assistant" (pricing assistant) feature in its merchant management backend Ebooking will be officially discontinued, making it the first online travel agency (OTA) platform to proactively shut down such automated pricing tools. This decision stems from Ctrip's in-depth review of the current high-quality development requirements in the accommodation and tourism industry, aiming to reduce irrational price wars between hotels through technological "simplification," thereby freeing up greater autonomy in pricing and profit potential for merchants, and thus stimulating their intrinsic motivation to improve service quality.
In the online hotel booking sector, automated pricing tools were once considered core components for improving pricing efficiency and order conversion. However, as the industry entered a phase of stock competition and quality upgrading, excessive reliance on algorithms has led to automated price-cutting competitions that have, to some extent, harmed the health of the industry ecosystem.
Ctrip stated that after collecting optimization suggestions from all parties, the company believes that such tools are no longer suitable for the current policy orientation and market environment. After the feature is discontinued, Ctrip will not cut off data support but will shift the business logic from "decision-making on behalf of merchants" to "decision-making reference," continuing to provide suggestive guidance through the "Business Guidance" and "Data Center" sections of Ebooking.
This move not only reflects Ctrip's firm response to the national policy against disorderly competition in the industry, but also signals a strategic transformation in the dimensions of competition among tourism platforms. Shifting from algorithm-driven "price wars" to "value-based battles" based on service quality will drive industry competition back to a rational and sustainable track, marking a milestone in building a more friendly platform ecosystem.