Outstanding Innovation is our annual campaign spotlighting the world’s most innovative brands.
This year, we unpack the strategies of those not just adapting to change, but actively shaping what’s next. Powered by 2025 Kantar BrandZ data and rich qualitative insights, we explore how these brands are finding new space and what you can learn from their disruptive innovations.
Let’s now explore how Trip.com – one of the brands in the Rising Innovative Brands category – achieved their innovation success.
Launched in February 2023, the AI travel assistant TripGenie epitomises Trip.com’s commitment to innovation – combining GenAI capacities with the brand’s industry-specific knowledge to transform the way users plan and manage travel.
Source: https://www.trip.com/tripgenie/
In the past two years, the product has gained many new features – now offering live updates, alerts and on-the-road support, as well as extensive planning and itinerary advice.
Amy Wei, Trip.com Group’s Senior Product Director, highlights the Menu Assistant – which in addition to translation, helps decode cultural nuances and simplify decision-making – as one example of how TripGenie provides proactive, conversational assistance throughout the travel experience. Another new development is an updated home screen widget offering timely information, prompts and tips.
From research to booking and encountering unexpected situations on the road, travel is all about experience, says Wei – with “a lot of occasions or scenarios when we need to help our users”.
This means that “innovation is the engine of our success”, she says – adding that the speed this takes place at is “crucial”.
“You need to be fast and you need to have agility to try new ideas and technology”, says Wei. This way of working allows teams to ask: “Should we continue to invest, or should we shift to another direction?”
But what does innovating at speed look like in practice? Let’s take a closer look at how Trip.com does it.
1. Following technology with purpose
To achieve successful innovations like this, it’s essential to take the right attitude towards technology. Wei says Trip.com makes sure to “follow technology developments with a purpose” rather than “blindly chasing” the latest solutions.
Instead of adopting new technology for its own sake, she explains, the brand uses it to develop innovations aimed at addressing a particular challenge in a real-life scenario. This way, the tech becomes a tool that “actually helps us to solve the user’s pain point”.
2. Starting from common ground
In support of this approach, Wei emphasises the importance of having internal conversations to align the organisation on shared goals. When planning an innovation with the various teams involved – who all have different priorities, resources and restrictions – she says it helps to get clear from the outset on the main user challenges.
“If everyone agrees on that, we will have a very good starting point,” she says. “We have common ground that we can start to tackle… so we begin from something real”.
3.Developing a culture of innovation
Even when the goals are clear, iterating at speed also depends on building a “very strong culture” that encourages bolder, faster, execution, says Wei – where people feel able to experiment despite the risk of failure. At Trip.com, teams are encouraged to “try to do something new and something good” – and if this doesn’t work out, “we do not blame them”.
“Innovation is strongly associated with failure,” adds Wei. Embracing this means the brand can move “at a very fast speed and iterate and learn, and then we continue to improve.”
The underlying mindset: stay user-centric
Wei says a strongly “user-centric” mindset is at the core of Trip.com’s innovation work: “We put our user in front of everything else.”
TripGenie features such as the menu assistant and widget are not directly targeting bookings or conversions, she explains – “it’s actually putting the user in our mind first”.
“You need to understand your user very well,” says Wei. “We try to understand what difficulties users are facing and how technology can tackle that.”
Learn from Outstanding Innovators 2025
Access all free content from this year’s Outstanding Innovation here. Discover the secrets to disruptive innovation, learn from the world’s most innovative brands and start planning your future-focused innovation strategy.
