Chapter 613: Is this all Ctrip has?
Facing the reporter who was asking questions, Lu Yiming did not evade the question, but responded directly: "Xia's economy is developing, but the business model of our existing travel agencies is still stuck in the past. It is difficult to meet the changed market demand, and the services provided are also inadequate. And in my opinion, the tourism industry has a lot of room for imagination. I'm afraid you don't know that in 2000, the scale of our Xia's tourism industry had reached 317.532 billion yuan. Travel has become the second largest expenditure for the people, even higher than cars. And with the advent of the information age, Internet technology will greatly change the way all of us travel. What market saturation? In my opinion, the fun has just begun."
Another reporter asked: "I heard that you wanted to invest in Ctrip before, but were rejected. So in anger, you poached Mr. Ji and invested 30 million to let him start Home Inn. Is this your revenge on Ctrip?"
Lu Yiming said righteously, "What revenge? Am I such a petty person? From a business perspective, I just think that Mr. Ji's business plan is very good, so I will invest money in this project. There is absolutely no personal grudge involved."
However, the more glorious and righteous Lu Yiming spoke, the less these reporters believed him.
After all, you just asked to invest in Ctrip, and after being rejected, you immediately poached the founder. You tell me that there is no personal grudge involved?
Although this is what they said, the reporters below have already started to extract keywords and conceive news on their own.
What do you mean by no personal grudges? How can we write explosive news without any personal grudges?
Therefore, there must be grudges!
Some journalists with rich imaginations have already started to imagine hundreds of thousands of words of love-hate drama in their minds.
After the press conference, Lu Yiming didn't think much about it. He felt that he was such a frank and honest man that he was a role model among capitalists. He disdained all those things of hiding and hesitating. He just wanted to be open and aboveboard!
As a result, when I read the newspaper the next morning, I was almost angry to death by what it said.
"Lu, the richest man, was furious and raised an army, spending 30 million just for revenge"
"The richest man said something, and the four gentlemen of Ctrip parted ways"
"Rejecting Lu's richest man, Ctrip gets into trouble"
“…”
Lu Yiming couldn't help but cursed: "Oh my god, do these media people still have any moral integrity? Day after day, they almost write me as the kind of villain who will kill the whole family if he disagrees with me. Am I that petty?"
Shi Qingxue teased, "You are always petty. I remember when I was in the first year of high school, Lu Yiping borrowed ten yuan from you and forgot to return it. You kept this in mind for the entire semester."
"Good fellow, you are trying to ruin my show, right? I will punish you according to my family rules."
Lu Yiming picked up Shi Qingxue and walked towards the bedroom.
Shi Qingxue screamed: "Ah, I don't dare anymore, please forgive me. I still have classes this morning."
“…”
On the way to school, Lu Yiming sat in the back seat, thinking about how to kill Ctrip.
It’s not because of personal grudges. Who has a grudge against anyone these days?
What Lu Yiming wanted was just to swallow up Ctrip's business. It was impossible for him not to be tempted by a company with a market value of 23 billion US dollars.
Although Ctrip has acquired Beijing Modern American Express Reservation Center, it is still a long way from transforming into its later complete form and is not invulnerable.
Since China began to implement the Golden Week system in 1999, domestic tourism has shown explosive growth. This shows that the online travel industry is a completely promising industry.
If you leave such a large sum of real money unearthed and don't make any money from it, you must be mentally ill.
Anyway, the major shareholders behind Ctrip are almost all foreign-funded enterprises. Instead of letting the money go to the foreigners, it would be better for them to just pocket the money without any trouble.
Ctrip’s real position in the market was actually established thanks to two key industry mergers and acquisitions.
In 2000, Ctrip used hotel reservations as its entry point and acquired Beijing Modern Express Reservation Center, the largest telephone reservation center in China. Ctrip thus became the largest hotel distributor in the country, and its business revenue increased to more than 90% the following year, turning its fortunes around in one fell swoop.
The second key merger and acquisition took place in 2002, targeting the largest individual ticketing center in Beijing - Coast Airlines Agency.
It was this merger and acquisition that transformed Ctrip and started its rapid development.
Now that American Express has been taken down, if they want to snipe Ctrip, they can only intercept the Coast Airlines agency.
When he arrived at the school, Lu Yiming called Ji Qi: "Hey, Old Ji, how is the company preparing now?"
Ji Qi said: "We are looking for people to form a team."
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "Starting your own business is positive. I was on my way to school just now and I thought of something. As an investor, is it okay for me to give you a suggestion?"
Ji Qi frowned and said, "Boss Lu, didn't you promise me not to directly interfere in the operation and management of the company?"
As the saying goes, once bitten by a snake, one will be afraid of ropes for ten years. Ji Qi had just been cheated by the people from Ctrip, and now Lu Yiming started to make comments again. Ji Qi felt like a thousand horses were galloping through his heart.
Lu Yiming said: "I'm not ordering you to do anything, I'm just making a suggestion. It's up to you whether you adopt it or not."
After hearing what Lu Yiming said, Ji Qi was helpless and said, "Okay, tell me."
Lu Yiming said, "I was thinking, didn't we talk about opening a hotel chain and then setting up an online booking service?"
Ji Qi said, "Yeah, what's the problem?"
Lu Yiming said, "No problem. The key is that our service industry cannot provide a single service. What should people do after they come from other places to see our guest rooms and book a room? We have to solve this problem for them. Do you think we can find someone to connect with airlines, railways, passenger transport, etc. to set up a ticket booking business?"
After hearing what Lu Yiming said, Ji Qi's eyes lit up immediately and he praised, "Mr. Lu, this is a good suggestion. Why didn't I think of this? Guests can book a room on our website and buy their tickets at the same time. If they need anything in the future, won't they think of Home Inn first?"
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "Yes, in essence, we are a tertiary industry, that is, a service industry. As a service industry, we have to serve our customers well. Regarding ticketing, I also looked up some information on the way here. There is a Coast Airlines agency that is looking for someone to take over. You can go and talk to them. If you can negotiate, then this part will be complete."
Ji Qi had actually paid attention to Coast Airlines, but he had not yet considered providing a nationwide unified air ticket booking service, mainly because the investment required was not small and the risk was very high.
But there is no doubt that if it succeeds, Home Inn will be able to gain a firm foothold in the industry immediately!
"No problem, I'll go talk to you today!"
Originally, Ji Qi did not expect an "outsider" like Lu Yiming to say anything constructive, but to his surprise, the suggestions Lu Yiming gave were very practical!
Ji Qi is an entrepreneur full of passion and enterprising spirit. After receiving investment from Lu Yiming, he immediately started his business layout without stopping.
On March 1, 2001, Home Inn Hotel Management Co., Ltd. was formally established, with plans to develop economy hotel chain projects in China and formulate a business model based on the characteristics of the Xiaguo Hotel industry.
Subsequently, it adopted "Home Inn" as its brand name, focused on developing hotels below three stars into chain franchise stores of its own brand, and made franchising the core of its business model.
Two weeks later, the renovation of the first Home Inn hotel in East China, Zhonghai Century Park, started, marking that the Home Inn hotel chain has made "direct-operated stores" the focus of its brand development.
After negotiations, using the funds in Lu Yiming's hands, Ji Qi successfully acquired the Coast Airlines Agency and began to develop a budget hotel business.
Ji Qi's attack speed was so fast that Ctrip had no time to react.
At Ctrip's headquarters, the president's office, where heated debates usually took place whenever something big happened, was now completely silent.
Neil Shen quit his job as an executive at Deutsche Bank, and Liang Jianzhang also gave up his duties as consulting director for Oracle's Xiaguo region. Both of them appeared in the company, looking at the documents in their hands with serious expressions.
Just a few days ago, Ji Qi, the president of Home Inn, flew directly to Beijing and formally established a joint venture with Capital Tourism Group, named "Home Inn Hotel Chain", and established "Home Inn" as the core brand.
The four former "Jianguo Inn" chains under the CITS Group were uniformly renamed "Home Inns", becoming the first batch of directly-operated hotels of the Home Inns chain.
Just at seven o'clock this morning, news came from Beijing that the number of Home Inn hotel chain stores has reached twenty!
Ji Qi's speed of conquering cities and territories is simply too fast to keep up with. This tactic of using speed to defeat slowness has actually made Ctrip lose its way.
Shen Nanpeng put down the photocopied materials in his hand, pinched his brows, and said with a worried look on his face: "It's fast, too fast. It's only April now, but in just 50 days, Lao Ji has already caught up with all our efforts in the past two years."
Fan Min glanced at Shen Nanpeng and couldn't help complaining, "I remember that Lao Ji had discussed this express hotel project with us, but it was just an immature idea at the time. I didn't expect him to perfect the project details so quickly. If we hadn't forced him away, we wouldn't have to be so passive now."
Fan Min still has quite a few complaints about Shen Nanpeng, mainly because she is unhappy with the way Shen used tactics and took advantage of his relationship with investors to force Ji Qi to give up the position of CEO.
You have to know that at the beginning, when the four of them started the business together, they made an agreement that Shen Nanpeng would be responsible for financing and finance, Liang Jianzhang would be responsible for technology, Ji Qi would be responsible for management, and Fan Min would be responsible for formulating the company's rules and regulations and personnel appointments.
As a result, in 2000, when Ctrip had just gotten rid of the crisis and completed its third round of financing, Shen Nanpeng and Liang Jianzhang teamed up to force Ji Qi to give up the position of CEO.
Ji Qi didn't care too much about this matter at the time, but he didn't expect that the hidden dangers that were planted at the time would lead to their separation today.
Shen Nanpeng also felt a little regretful, but he still defended himself by saying: "Can you blame me for this? Ctrip's business was on the right track at the beginning, but the shortcomings of management became increasingly prominent. I admit that Lao Ji has a lot of ideas and his pioneering ability is also very strong, but his management ability is indeed not so good."
Liang Jianzhang also spoke up for Shen Nanpeng: "We initially only asked the company to set up a joint CEO, with Lao Ji and I serving together. Later, Lao Ji gave up the position of CEO for the benefit of the company. This matter cannot be blamed on Lao Shen, Lao Fan."
Just like starting a business together among all friends, there must be conflicts and quarrels among the four leaders of Ctrip.
However, Shen Nanpeng still felt that he was wronged and complained: "Although Lao Ji gave up the position of CEO, isn't he still the president of Ctrip? I didn't want things to get to this point."
In fact, Fan Min secretly despised the two people's excuses.
He had worked in a state-owned enterprise before. What kind of bad things had he not seen?
It is clear that Shen Nanpeng and Liang Jianzhang are both speculators. When Ctrip was just starting out and its future was uncertain, neither of them gave up their jobs and did not come to the company often. Instead, it was Ji Qi who worked full-time and made great contributions to the development of Ctrip.
What's the result?
When Ctrip had gained a firm foothold and was on the verge of taking off, Shen Nanpeng and Liang Jianzhang decided to quit their jobs and, together with investors, launched a coup d'etat to force Ji Qi to "abdicate."
The so-called better development of the company is nothing but bullshit. Ji Qi is an honest man and he values feelings, so he was fooled by the two of them.
Liang Jianzhang rubbed his brows and said, "Okay, stop arguing. It's useless to say these things now. Let's think about how to deal with it. This old Ji seems to be honest and hardworking. Who could have expected that he would do such a thing after being slightly wronged? Now that he has become our opponent, we have to take action."
Fan Min sneered, "How to act? Now he has the support of Xiaguo's richest man Lu Yiming. Didn't you read the newspaper? Lu Yiming teamed up with Old Ji to seek revenge on us Ctrip. Old Ji was so successful, it goes without saying that Lu Yiming used his connections. Let me ask you, are we as rich as Lu Yiming? Or do we have as strong connections as Lu Yiming?"
After these words were spoken, everyone fell silent.
There is no doubt that Lu Yiming's entry is a pure dimensionality reduction attack for everyone. How could Ctrip withstand it?
Liang Jianzhang suggested helplessly: "Why don't we talk to Lao Ji? Xiaguo's market is big enough for us to make money together. Besides, Lao Ji also put a lot of effort into the establishment of Ctrip. He can't just watch Ctrip fall, right?"
Shen Nanpeng quickly said, "This is a good idea. Instead of fighting each other, it is better for the two companies to cooperate. Then they can firmly occupy half of and become the absolute overlord."
Now both companies have the potential to become hegemons, but if their strength is divided, they will be weaker. Once a war breaks out, there is a high probability that both sides will suffer losses.
Fan Min thought this idea was a bit far-fetched, but he did not object. After all, he could not think of any constructive ideas.
He felt that if he were Ji Qi, he would definitely not even look at Ctrip.
Home Inn is developing rapidly now, with Lu Yiming, the richest man in China, in charge. What is Ctrip? Why should I cooperate with you? Why not just swallow you up?
When you chased Ji Qi away, all you had eyes for was profit. Now that you're about to be defeated by Ji Qi, you're starting to talk about feelings?
Isn’t this funny?
On weekends, Lu Yiming found a football club, booked a football field, and asked Li Quanwang and others to play football together.
Spring is back, flowers are blooming, the cold is fading, it's time to get active again.
It has been a long time since Lu Yiming played football with Li Quanwang, so he was very happy. The only drawback was that his high school friends were no longer in Zhonghai, so they could not form a complete team.
After two consecutive lessons, Lu Yiming was sweating profusely and sat down to rest.
Just at this time, Ji Qi came over.
Just three hours ago, Ji Qi called Lu Yiming and said he was still in Beijing, but now he has already arrived in Zhonghai.
"Old Ji, you are too fierce. I heard that you have recently turned into a flying man. Do you have to work so hard? The body is the capital of revolution."
As a workaholic, Ji Qi didn't think it was a big deal. He smiled and said, "It's okay. It's nothing. I can still hold on."
Lu Yiming asked, "You came here to see me on purpose, do you have something to say?"
Ji Qi said: "Ctrip contacted me and said they wanted to talk to me."
Lu Yiming raised his eyebrows and smiled, "Oh? So soon? I thought they would last at least half a year, but I didn't expect them to fail so soon. Oh, life is really lonely like snow. I haven't even made a move yet, and he fell down."
In fact, Home Inn and Ctrip do have a basis for cooperation. Many of the businesses of both parties are overlapping and complementary. Basically, they are arranged around the "travel" of users and use the information transmission advantages of the Internet to provide the most convenient and fast services.
But the current layout makes Ctrip very uncomfortable. Home Inn's acquisition of Coast Airlines Agency not only allows it to obtain a stable income of at least 10 million yuan per year, but more importantly, it controls the window for ticket booking, which is equivalent to strangling Ctrip's throat.
And now the express hotel run by Ji Qi is even more of a stunt.
If this move succeeds, all of Ctrip’s previous arrangements will be meaningless.
Lu Yiming asked: "What do you think?"
From the perspective of capital, in such a situation, the best option is to shake hands and make peace, and there is no need to take unnecessary risks.
Even Lu Yiming had to admit that people like Shen Nanpeng and Liang Jianzhang, when making decisions, handled these things rationally based on completely commercial logic.
Feelings and face always come second to the company's interests and future.
