Do everything you can to travel, the money is gone, and people are about to collapse

I felt irritable and used to walk around the house.

Rarely go out, throw the rice bowl on the table after eating, and start brushing the mobile phone.

Several accounts took turns to switch to see what news was in Ctrip's retail rights protection and what notifications were sent in the background of Ctrip merchants.

I look forward to a miracle, look forward to a day, no, tomorrow, when entering the Ctrip merchant backstage, I received a notice from Ctrip to withdraw the rescinding agent for retailers.

But no.

Again and again, as the tomorrow I had been looking forward to arrived, it got worse and worse.

I feel very anxious and often get angry about small things. Looking at the heavier debt, I felt like I was about to collapse.

I feel like playing.

I decided to fight for my life!

After sending emails to Ctrip, I wanted to stand up and talk about what happened to me.

I endured for many years.

Over the years, he has been continuously sucked by Ctrip and has thought many times to stand up and speak. But think about the family, look at the children, they all have to eat and have to choose to give up again and again.

But if I rely on Ctrip this time, I will go bankrupt.

Huating Crane

My anxiety starts on May 17, 2022.

On this day, Ctrip was responsible for retail business, and issued a notice in the group, requiring domestic group merchants to switch from retail to agent.

It was this notice that changed her and our destiny.

She could be laid off by Ctrip after the retail business was canceled, and many of us would face bankruptcy.

I am a merchant stationed in Ctrip, and to be more specific, I am the actual person in charge of the travel agency stationed in Ctrip.

The word in charge sounds like a small boss. But most of the time, we are just mixing with Ctrip. I'll talk more about that later.

In the face of monopoly platforms, small businesses are playthings.

This time, Ctrip forced merchants to switch from retail to agent, which brought us at least three points of impact.

First, the commission increased by 5%. After that, for every line we sell, Ctrip's commission will increase by about 5%.

Secretly there will be more. Ctrip discounts do not reduce commissions, and merchants will give discounts to guests during promotions, but Ctrip still takes a commission for the discounted part.

Second, the settlement cycle becomes longer. From one week to 45 days. This is fatal for travel agencies, and the cash flow pressure is too great to be alleviated by borrowing. Travel agencies are asset-light companies, and it is difficult to get loans.

At this time, Ctrip asked the merchant to use its unsettled fees as collateral, loan to it, and pay an annual interest rate of 7%-18%.

Our costs have increased by another 7%-18%.

The annual interest rate of 18% is already very high, and the line drawn by the state for usury is 24%.

If the travel agency does not want to take out a loan, it needs to pay Ctrip an additional 10,000 yuan per year to pull the settlement cycle back to seven days.

Third, merchants no longer directly to customers. When inquiring about the route, Ctrip's customer service will receive them.

For the same trip, Ctrip also has its own routes.

If the travel agency cannot directly respond to the customer, when the guest consults, do you think Ctrip's customer service will push Ctrip's self-operated line, or will it push the line of the travel agency?

Being both a referee and an athlete, your finish line is not as high as the starting point, and the difference between difficulty and difficulty is this.

From retail to agency, our operating expenses will increase by about 15%.

In 2021, 50% of our sales will already be spent on Ctrip, and the loss will be a mess. What would be the result of another 15%?

We keep retreating, we keep putting up with it.

But not everyone has the ability to tolerate things in case of trouble, and for the general public, the more they endure for a while, the more angry they are, and the more they retreat, the more bitter they are.

I miss the days before Qunar was acquired by Ctrip.

At that time, the online travel market was not yet monopolized, and Qunar also respected merchants, although it was also very bitter, but at least there was hope.

Power fuels

In 2014, Ctrip took a stake in Tongcheng.

In 2015, Ctrip held eLong.

In 2016, Ctrip acquired Qunar.

In 2017, Tongcheng and eLong merged, and Ctrip became the largest shareholder of the new company.

Even though it has only a 5% stake in Tuniu, Ctrip still has a very heavy weight in Tuniu and has sent Zhou Shiwei as a director of Tuniu.

At present, only a few domestic travel platforms that have not yet been infected by Ctrip are Mafengwo, Fliggy and Meituan.

In 2018, Ma Honeycomb was deeply trapped in the data cost gate and fell first.

Meituan does not do inter-provincial travel business. Fliggy is not big enough to compete with Ctrip.

Ctrip is everywhere.

If you want to travel online, you can't help but meet Ctrip.

Ctrip is a bigger ship, and we're the fuel it burns as it moves forward.

In this process, Ctrip will test the affordability of the travel agency by increasing the commission, the current region, and the suspension of operations.

In the beginning, we were allowed to do all the city lines, and then the lines for 30 departures and 50 destinations could not be done. The further back you go, the more restrictive you are, and the harder it gets.

And in order to survive, we have become more and more humble. When Ctrip's operation tells us that the data is going to be done, we will understand the regional brushing orders.

Human affairs cannot be looked back much.

During this period, travel agencies and travel agencies compete for markets in order to grab the market.

Our consulting conversion rate has reached a maximum of more than 80%, and the ratio of true and false orders has reached 1:1.

Friends who do hotels in the group say that their situation is similar.

It's a bit like a harem competition for favors, where the concubines don't think the problem lies with the emperor. Instead, they drug each other, hoping to poison each other. In the end, the emperor won the ma.

Even if it is now affected by the epidemic, Ctrip's financial report is still quite good.

Behind the absurd stories, there are often a bunch of unspeakable secrets. If I hadn't been able to live, I wouldn't have come out and said this bunch of things.

I started traveling in 2008, and the more I did it, the more painful it became, and the more I did it, the less sense of meaning I felt. In a high-pressure environment, there are many emotions that have nowhere to vent.

No matter how hard you work, you can't see the upward passage, or even the way out.

But we have to think about living.

My husband and I are both doing tours, and the two children are in their teens and not yet adults. Even if not for themselves, for their sake, the work can not stop.

Recently, I found that the cost of buying vegetables exceeded my expectations, and I often complained to my husband. When the income is normal, you may not care too much about these expenses, but when the income stops and there is no input to offset the output, the rate of loss of money will be far beyond your judgment.

Tear down and rebuild

Ctrip is very good at controlling merchants.

They put a rope around your neck and keep tightening it.

It can neither make you die, nor can it make you rebel, and it definitely cannot make you kick easily. The force is well controlled.

The money that Ctrip has left for our kind of tenants has always been just enough to eat.

Then you can't be big, and you can't fight it.

When you are struggling with the subsistence line, you will put more energy into the internal friction with your peers in order to eat, but it is difficult to stop thinking about this relationship with Ctrip.

But there are also times when this kind of operation is wrong.

In 2021, Ctrip completed the transformation of "day trip" merchants from "retail" to "agent", which achieved great success.

Increase the commission of 5% to day trip merchants across the country, extend their account period to 45 days, let them take out a loan from Ctrip, and charge an annual interest rate of 7%-18%.

Despite the opposition of travel agencies, it was all done in the end.

This year, they repeated the same trick, forcing "multi-day tour" merchants to switch from "retail" to "agent". I didn't expect the same strength, but it cost the merchants their lives.

We opened a shop with Ctrip, which is a bit similar to renting land and building a house to open a restaurant.

After spending a lot of money, after building the house, I continued to lose money to do drainage money, and finally I was a little popular, and I was in sight to make money. At this time, Ctrip drove a bulldozer and flattened you in two clicks.

Ctrip said that the rules have changed, and then play like this: the house is rebuilt, the restaurant Ctrip comes to operate, but the dish is still fried by the merchant, Ctrip buys it at a reserve price, and then sells it to the guests at a higher price, as for how much money to add, that is its business.

After the demolition, the restaurant needs to be rebuilt, and it costs money to re-do the explosion, and these costs are paid by the merchants.

This demolition and construction has stimulated Ctrip's economic development.

Now that Ctrip is becoming less and less profitable, many travel agencies have begun to guide users from Ctrip to the outside world, giving discounts to guests and allowing guests to make second reservations to leave Ctrip.

Among themselves, merchants have also begun to build tourism alliances and introduce passenger flows to each other. In order to reassure guests, in the absence of a guarantee platform, there are merchants who are satisfied with the activities in giving money after pushing the first trip.

And I felt a little tired.

In a trance, I felt like I was heading south, through the Great Desert of Itra, which could not be left with blood, and the shadows of the Black Forest gradually receded.

I saw a huge island floating in the air, where a river of honey fell from the sky, and it was the sanctuary of Artus, a place where the pain could not reach.

It's not a dream, it's an illusion.