Chinese OTAs deploy AI for global push

Over the past decade, Chinese tech innovations for the home market have been woven into the global travel tapestry.

Conceived as an e-commerce payment solution that connects online shoppers and retailers, AliPay and WeChat Pay now enable Chinese travelers to make mobile purchases worldwide.

BYD, the world's largest electric car maker, is exporting China's influential self-drive travel trend across continents from Australia to Norway to Saudi Arabia.

Beijing-based short-video app Douyin, which was rebranded as TikTok for users outside China, and Shanghai-founded social network Xiaohongshu (RedNote) are now go-to platforms for tourism boards and travel brands to engage Chinese tourists.

According to Phocuswright’s latest travel research report Chinese OTAs Deploy AI for Big Global Push, Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) services are not just following this global path, they are transforming interactions with consumers—and delivering a high degree of itinerary control to users. 

The process began three years ago with online travel agencies (OTAs) releasing AI-enabled trip-planning portals that combine travel partner content, user-generated video and text to create vast global databases of travel information, recommendations and booking options.

Trip.com led with its TripGenie toolkit, Fliggy unveiled AskMe, Tongcheng integrated DeepSeek into DeepTrip, Tuniu launched Xiao Niu and Mafengwo released Xiao Ma.

Meanwhile, the AI-powered tools support small- and medium-sized enterprise travel partners that lack the resources of major brands to generate the multilingual content required to participate in these smart distribution ecosystems.

These first-mover AI solutions were widely seen as stopgaps while more powerful agentic interfaces were stress tested. 

The 2026 Spring Festival kickstarted a new era of agentic mobile commerce across China's consumer economy, with travel serving as a sandbox. OTAs are custom engineering open-source large language models, such as DeepSeek, Qwen and Moonshot, to reformat touchless travel planning, research, decision-making, booking and payment.

During Spring Festival, these tools started to inform how users conceive their travel plans and meticulously interrogate AI systems to self-curate their own itineraries.

"The rise of AI agents marks one of the most significant technological shifts in years, and we are actively shaping their role in travel," said James Liang, executive chairman and co-founder of Trip.com. 

Chinese OTAs' longstanding strategy of creating as many traveler data and content touchpoints as possible allied with global supply chains mean they are well positioned to lead the evolution of how the world travels with AI. 

In 2023 Phocuswright reported on how Chinese OTAs reframed their businesses during 36 months of international travel isolation by leveraging user-generated content and leaning into live-streaming capabilities, among other strategies. This report provides a key update on these dynamic intermediaries, as they seek to dramatically expand their influence in China and worldwide.  

This new report delves into:

• The three pillars of OTA economics: As the 2026 Spring Festival vacation period demonstrated in February, demand is diversifying across all three pillars (inbound, domestic and outbound travel), and Chinese AI engineering is driving a period of structural transformation.
• Integrating inbound and outbound: Establishing more partnerships with global and regional travel suppliers and engaging new customers enables OTAs to build brand recognition that can be cross-fertilized from outbound to inbound tourism. 
• AI: From trip planning to interface transformation: OTAs are custom engineering open-source LLMs, such as DeepSeek, Qwen and Moonshot, to reformat touchless travel planning, research, decision-making, booking and payment. 
• Seamless conversational booking: In 2026, Chinese consumers are fully embracing the agentic commerce revolution. 
• Eight key takeaways: Internet economy regulation, hybrid travel distributors, mega brands and more.

As AI trip-planning tools evolve toward agentic, conversational commerce, Chinese platforms are positioning to export their mobile-first ecosystems—content, payments, partnerships and now AI-driven booking—into Asia Pacific first, then selectively into other regions.