(Yicai Global) March 7 -- Trip.Com Group’s shares rose after China's largest online travel agency reported a net profit of nearly CNY2.1 billion (USD300 million) for the fourth quarter of 2022, compared with a CNY834 million (USD120 million) net loss a year earlier.

Trip.Com [HKG: 9961] closed 1.7 percent up at HKD315.40 (USD40.18) apiece today. In pre-market trading in New York, the company's stock price [NASDAQ: TCOM] was up 2.6 percent at USD39.60 as of 5.26 a.m. local time.

Revenue rose 7.5 percent to CNY5 billion in the three months ended Dec. 31, the Shanghai-based company said in its latest earnings report released yesterday.

“During the fourth quarter, the European and the US markets made further progress towards normalcy while the Asia market was quickly picking up the pace,” Executive Chairman James Liang said

Thanks to the strong recovery in air travel markets abroad, flight bookings on Trip.Com's overseas platform soared more than 80 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022.

For the full year, Trip.Com returned to the black, posting a net profit of CNY1.4 billion, compared with a net loss of CNY550 million in 2021. Revenue was unchanged at about CNY20.1 billion (USD2.9 billion).

“The year of 2022 marks a turning point for the global travel industry, with most of the travel restrictions and quarantine requirements in China being lifted in December and the global travel industry maintaining its robust recovery,” Liang said.

Global air passenger traffic grew over 64 percent last year from 2021, Trip.Com said, citing data from the International Air Transport Association.

“We have seen rapid growth for China's outbound travel since the beginning of 2023, showing a strong pent-up demand for outbound travel,” Liang said. “We are excited about the opportunities ahead and are well prepared to capture demand across our major markets.”

China's air passenger traffic recovered to about 80 percent of the same period in 2019 in the first two months of this year. Outbound travel bookings on Trip.Com are at about 40 percent of the pre-pandemic level, The Paper reported.

“So far in the first quarter, domestic air ticket and hotel bookings on Trip.Com have exceeded the same period in 2019, while outbound travel bookings jumped more than 300 percent over last year," Chief Executive Jane Sun said. “The darkness before the dawn has passed.”

Editor: Futura Costaglione