梁建章：让我们携手大胆创新，为了人类更美好的未来

5月26日上午，由携程集团主办的Envision.2025全球合作伙伴大会，携程集团联合创始人兼董事局主席、人口经济学家梁建章发表了《Travel and Innovation》（旅行与创新）的主题演讲，他介绍了旅行和创新、生育是未来人类最重要的活动：不仅在经济学上至关重要，更是人类在AI时代最具意义和成就感的行动。其中，从旅行创新的角度，他重点分享了三大类创新，即效率创新、可持续创新和独特体验创新。会上，他正式宣布，为进一步支持创新以促进旅游业发展，携程将重磅投入 10 亿元旅游创新基金，投资于全球创新项目。在此基金下，携程还特别设立旅游创新奖，每年向主要的先驱者和有远见的旅行创新者颁发1000万元的奖金。

以下为梁建章演讲实录：

非常激动与大家相聚于此，你们当中有很多携程的老朋友，也有新朋友，感谢大家的到来。

这是一个激动人心的时代，因为全球正在发生大量创新，这将真正推动我们的旅游业发展。

我记得上次（2024年12月18日阿布扎比，携程集团全球合作伙伴峰会）与大家分享过我对人类未来最重要活动的哲学思考。对吧？

从经济、社会和哲学角度来看，人类未来最重要的活动有三项，其中两项已列在此处，第三项答案现在就揭晓——是生育繁衍。另外两项最重要活动是旅行与创新。为什么？因为它们不仅在经济学上至关重要，更是人类在AI时代最具意义和成就感的行动。

历史上，旅行始终受技术变革影响。我们可以按目标将旅行创新分为三大类：第一类是效率创新，第二类是可持续创新，第三类（或许最重要）是独特体验创新。

例如我们的AI助手"TripGenie"，在提升客户旅行体验、优化服务流程及激发创新旅行灵感方面取得显著进展。第二类可持续创新方面，我们推出了"携程度假农庄"酒店品牌，通过发展旅游业助力欠发达乡村社区经济增长与带动就业。

去年我们试点低碳酒店模式，采用新能源技术（如太阳能板与储能设施），帮助酒店实现碳排放减少30%。该模式投资回收期约7-8年，我们通过平台流量倾斜提升酒店入住率，证明其经济可行性。我希望这是一个可扩展的模式，并且希望利用我们的技术，将这种低碳酒店模式推广到世界其他地方。

第三类最令人兴奋——独特旅行体验创新，这类创新有四个子类别。第一是技术驱动型，第二是文化驱动型，第三是艺术驱动型，第四是内容驱动型。

我认为技术驱动型创新有很多例子，我只举一个例子，那就是拉斯维加斯的“球体”和《来世》演出。在旅游业中，有很多先驱者利用最新的虚拟现实和数字技术，“球体”就是其中之一。它是世界上最大的LED穹顶剧院，内部LED面积超过1.5万平方米，外部面积5.4万平方米，配备了多感官应急座椅。这种独特的场地真的有助于提升戏剧体验，其中一场演出《来世》是一个电子舞曲表演系列。

携程数据显示，Sphere剧场周边酒店预订量激增10倍，拉斯维加斯整体订单同比增长56%；这种旅行创新确实有助于推动当地经济发展。

另一种为独特体验的创新是文化驱动型创新。这是一项15亿美元的投资，用于在吉萨金字塔附近建造世界上最大的考古博物馆。它独特的建筑设计与吉萨金字塔相呼应。所以它在现代技术和历史遗迹之间创造了一种视觉对话，这是相当奇妙的体验。根据携程的数据，我们开罗的订单增长了125%，我们埃及的预订量在今年和去年也都迅速创下历史新高。

另一种为独特体验的创新是艺术驱动型创新。实际上，我明天要前往四川成都。制作灯笼是中国一项非常古老的传统艺术。如今，成都附近的自贡，这座城市已成为大型灯笼制作企业的聚集地，世界上一些规模最大的灯笼制作公司坐落于此。近年来，当地举办了灯笼节。这是同类活动中规模最大的，拥有世界上最壮观的灯笼展示中心，并且多年来在技术和艺术设计方面不断精进。去年，仅在节假日高峰期，这个灯笼节就吸引了超过 45 万名游客涌入这座小城，只为一睹自贡灯会的风采。

根据携程的数据，前往这个小城市的订单同比增长了41%，目的地网页浏览量同比增长约300%，人们对这个灯会的兴趣与日俱增，所以如果有机会，我鼓励大家去体验一下。

最后但同样重要的，我想谈谈内容驱动型创新。世界各地都有好例子，不过我要说的最新例子是我们的携程音乐奖（如歌的旅程）。实际上，昨天我们举办了一场盛大的（颁奖典礼）活动。这个音乐奖大约六个月前开始举办。我们设置了巨额奖金，总奖金超过100万美元，一等奖超过10万美元。这可能是这类音乐奖中奖金最高的。我们邀请了超过1万名音乐人，提交了超过1万首歌曲参加比赛。有超过3亿观众收听了这些歌曲，在社交媒体上引起了极大的关注。

这些歌曲不像其他音乐比赛的歌曲，它们必须与当地文化、当地风景或当地美食特别相关。所以，我给你们举几个例子。我们有《北京之声》，有《成都之声》，还有《上海之声》，《上海之歌》特别讲述了如何在上海享受一场很棒的派对。

理想情况下，当我们前往一个目的地，在去机场的路上，在去酒店的路上，我们应该收听专门为当地城市文化创作的最佳配乐。这些声音将是为此目的而创作的最佳内容。

正如你们所见，全球旅游业正在发生很多创新。但这还不够。我们需要更多这样的创新，让游客来得了，并且还能再来。

所以为了进一步支持创新以促进旅游业发展，我们设立了（10亿元）旅游创新基金。投资于创新项目，比如音乐奖、低碳酒店以及许多其他创新项目。为真正激发旅游业更多的创新活力，我们还需要创新者之间更多的合作。这就是为什么在这个基金下，我们还将设立旅游创新奖，每年向主要的先驱者和有远见的旅行创新者颁发超过1000万元的奖金。

表彰这些创新者非常重要，因为有时我们听说了一些创新，这些创新确实使整个经济受益，但我们不知道是谁做出了这些创新，这些创新并没有带来应得的经济回报。这些人就像英雄，我认为必须得到认可。所以我们真的应该表彰他们，并且非常重要的是，提高他们在全球的知名度，扩大全球影响力，帮助他们取得经济上的成功。

最后，我认为通过设立这个奖项，我们可以真正邀请人们分享他们的观点和想法，从而促进跨行业合作，不仅是扩大创新的规模，而且是在这些创新的基础上进一步激发更多创新。

我希望通过我们大家共同努力，能够携手大胆创新，为了人类更美好的未来远行。

非常感谢大家。

以下为英文演讲内容：

Good morning, so excited to be here with all of you. So many of you are longtime friends, and new friends. Thank you all for coming here.

It's an exciting time to be alive today, because there's so much innovation going on in the world, and that's going to really propel our travel industry. I think I shared with you last time my opinion and my philosophy about what the most important activities are for humanity going forward. Remember?

There are three most important — economically, socially, and also philosophically — activities for humanity going forward. Two of them are listed here. The third one will be a quiz question.

The third one — well, I'll tell you the answer now — the third one is procreation. Okay, we'll leave that behind. The two other most important activities are travel and innovation. Why? Because not only are they very important economically, but they are also the most meaningful activities, and the most fulfilling activities for humanity, especially in the age of AI.

Historically, travel has been really impacted by technology. So, we can broadly categorize travel innovation in three categories by purpose. The first is innovation for efficiency. The second one is innovation for sustainability. The third one, and probably the most important one, is the innovation for unique experiences.

At Trip.com, as an example, we are also really working very hard to leverage AI and robotic technology to further the efficiency in the travel industry. For example, our AI agent, which we call TripGenie, is really making a lot of progress in helping customers to improve the travel experience, improve the customer service experience, and also improve the travel idea exploration experience.

Second is innovation for sustainability. Last time, I shared with you that Trip.com has created a hotel brand specifically helping local communities, especially poor rural regions to advance their economy and employment by developing their travel industry. This is called Trip.com Group Country Retreats.

Last year, we experimented with the concept of low-carbon hotels by leveraging the latest new energy, clean energy technology. So, at this hotel, as an example, we installed solar panels and energy storage facilities — all part of our donation to the local community. That helps this hotel to realize a 30% reduction in carbon emissions and also economically it is quite viable. It has a payback period of 7 to 8 years, partly driven by our efforts to increase the exposure on our platform to drive more hotel guests to this hotel. So, I hope this is a scalable model, and we hope to leverage our technology to scale that low-carbon hotel model to the rest of the world.

Third, which I think is very exciting, is innovation for unique travel experiences. There are four subcategories in this type of innovation. The first is tech-enabled; the second is culture-enabled; the third is arts-enabled; and the fourth is content-enabled.

For tech-enabled innovation, I think there are many examples, and I’ll just show one example, which is the Sphere, and the Afterlife show in Las Vegas. I think in the travel industry, there are many pioneers to leverage the latest VR and digital technology, and the Sphere is the largest LED dome theater, with over 15,000 square meters internal LED area, and 54,000 square meters in exterior exosphere. It has a multi-sensory emergent seat arrangement, and this kind of unique venue really helps enhance the theatrical experience. One of the shows, Afterlife, is an EDM performance series, and it is generating a lot of revenues and financial returns for this innovation.

If you look at the Trip.com data, the hotels near this theater saw 10 times higher volume of bookings. For Las Vegas, the order from Trip.com has been growing over 56% year-over-year. So, this venue, and this travel innovation, is really helping to propel the local economy.

Another type of innovation for unique experiences is culture-enabled innovation. It really makes me want to go back to Egypt and Cairo again. This is a $1.5 billion investment in the world's largest archaeological museum near the Giza pyramids. Its unique architectural design is aligned with the Giza pyramids, so it's really creating a visual dialogue between the modern technology and the ancient sites. So, it's quite an amazing experience. Based on Trip.com data, our Cairo orders grew 125%, and our Egypt bookings also grew very rapidly, hitting a record high last year and into this year.

Another kind of innovation for unique experiences is art-enabled innovation. Lantern making is a very ancient traditional Chinese art, and this city has now become the home of some of the largest lantern making companies in the world. In recent years, it created this lantern festival. It is the largest of its kind, with some of the most magnificent lanterns in the world, and it keeps improving in terms of technology and in terms of art design over the years.

Last year, this festival — just during the peak holiday season — attracted over 450,000 visitors to this small city just to see the Lantern Festival. Based on Trip.com’s data, the orders to the small city grew 41% year-over-year and the destination web page (views) have grown about 300% year-over-year. So, we see increasing interest in this Lantern Festival and more and more visitors are expected to go to this Lantern Festival. The next time you are in Chengdu, I encourage you to experience this.

Lastly, but not least, I want to talk about content-enabled innovation. Actually, there are a lot of good examples all around the world. The latest example is our Trip Music Award.

Yesterday, actually, we had a big event. This music award started about 6 months ago. We gave a huge award prize. The prize money is altogether over $1 million, and the first prize is over $100,000 USD. This is probably the largest music award of this kind. We invited over 10,000 musicians, submitting over 10,000 songs to this contest. There were over 300 million viewers who listened to these songs — so it had a huge social media following. We just finished the contest, and among the top songs that received all the awards, you’ve probably heard some of the songs, which really became viral on social media, and each song is particularly related to that city.

So, this is not like any other music contest. These songs have to be specifically related to the local culture, local scenery or local cuisines. I’ll just give you some examples. We have the Beijing song, we have the top song for Chengdu, and the top song for Shanghai. The top song for Shanghai specifically talks about how to have a great party in Shanghai. Actually, we played the songs before this meeting, so you probably should have heard some of the songs. Ideally, when we visit a destination, on the way to the airport and on the way to the hotels, we should tune in to the best soundtrack specifically made for the local culture and local cities. These are the songs that will be the best content creation for that purpose.

So, as you can see, there's a lot of innovations happening in the travel industry around the world, but that's not enough. We need more innovations like that to make tourists come and come back again.

In order to further support innovations to promote the travel industry, we’ve established this Tourism Innovation Fund, to invest in innovation projects like the Music Awards, like the low-carbon hotels, like many other innovation projects, to really help spur more and more innovation in the travel industry. We also need more collaborations between innovators. That's why, in addition to this, we will establish a Tourism Innovation Award, to award annually over $1 million to the key pioneers, and visionaries — travel innovators.

To honor these innovators is very important, because sometimes we hear about innovations, and these innovations really help benefit the whole economy, but we don't know who made them. Those heroes must be, I think, recognized. But also, these innovations sometimes don't get the financial reward they deserve. So, we really should honor this, and also, very importantly, expand the global visibility, amplify the global visibility, to help them to achieve financial success. So, by this reward program, we hope to increase exposure for these innovations, to help them to achieve financial success.

Lastly, I think by having this award, we can really invite people to share their perspectives, their ideas, and to foster cross-industry collaborations — not just to scale these innovations, but to build on these, on the top of innovation, to spur further innovations. And I hope by working with all of you, together, we will be able to innovate boldly and travel far for the better future of humanity.

Thank you very much.