Trip.com Acquires Majority Stake in e-hoi: A New Era in European Cruise Distribution

Trip.com Group has made a direct entry into the European cruise distribution market by acquiring the majority stake in e-hoi GmbH, a cruise sales specialist based in Germany. The financial terms of the deal, completed on September 4, 2026, were not disclosed by the parties.

According to e-hoi's official announcement, the company will continue to operate independently with its existing brands, offices in Europe, employee teams, and management structure. Founder and CEO Detlev Schäferjohann will maintain his partnership in the company and will manage it alongside Managing Director Nicolay Merkt.

In a news article dated September 7 by Tourism Güncel, the acquisition is also evaluated as Trip.com’s entry into European cruise distribution.

e-hoi operates in eight European markets

Founded in Frankfurt in 2003, e-hoi focuses on the online sale of ocean and river cruises as well as tour operations.

According to the company’s statement, e-hoi group currently operates with a total of 10 brands in eight European markets, including Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, and France. The group uses its own technology infrastructure to compare daily prices from different cruise companies and also offers dynamic packages combined with flights.

e-hoi also includes brands like Un Mundo de Cruceros and Wondercruises in its portfolio. This structure means a broader distribution network for Trip.com than a single Germany-based travel site.

Why did Trip.com acquire a specialized cruise company?

Trip.com Group today offers accommodation, transportation, package tours, and various travel products through brands like Ctrip, Qunar, Trip.com, and Skyscanner. The company stated that in 2025, approximately 40% of its total revenue and bookings from international operations came from this segment; this rate was about 35% in 2024.

The investment in e-hoi indicates that this international growth strategy is being shifted to a more specialized product segment in Europe.

Cruise sales are a more complex product than classic hotel or flight bookings. Cabin classes, port routes, ship features, land tours, transfers, flight connections, and package conditions are all evaluated together in the sales process.

Therefore, acquiring a majority stake in an expert company with existing customers and technology infrastructure in Europe could shorten the market entry time for Trip.com instead of building a cruise sales system from scratch.

At the center of technology and artificial intelligence collaboration

The parties have indicated that technology is one of the key reasons for the agreement.

e-hoi CEO Schäferjohann states that joining Trip.com Group will provide the company with more capacity, especially in technology areas like artificial intelligence. Trip.com also aims to combine e-hoi’s European cruise expertise with the group’s global technology, flight, and hotel infrastructure.

How this integration will practically occur has not yet been disclosed.

However, platforms that can offer flights, hotels, transfers, or destination activities along with cruise tickets can retain more travel spending within their ecosystems per booking.

In terms of OTAs, competition seems to be shifting from merely acquiring more customers to managing a larger portion of the same customer's travel.

Why is e-hoi being kept independent?

One of the striking aspects of the acquisition is that the company will not be directly converted into the Trip.com brand.

According to e-hoi's announcement, existing brands, staff, locations, and management will be preserved; there will be no short-term changes to customers' existing bookings or partners' processes.

This model could provide a significant advantage in acquiring specialized travel brands.

The needs of cruise customers differ from those of general-purpose OTA customers. Preserving the existing team and brand knowledge could help Trip.com add its own technology and distribution power while not losing e-hoi’s product expertise.

However, the extent to which technological systems, customer data, and cross-selling models will be integrated in the long term will determine the real impact of the deal.

What does it mean for tourism businesses in Europe?

Trip.com’s growth in Europe is not only of interest to cruise companies.

A cruise booking can generate many additional expenses such as hotel accommodation before or after the port, transfers, restaurants, tours, and destination experiences.

Reaching this customer earlier through e-hoi may allow the group to more easily combine hotel and destination products with cruise travel.

This could create new distribution opportunities, especially for hotels and tourism businesses operating in cruise starting or stopover points like Barcelona, Rome, Athens, and Istanbul.

However, this opportunity also brings the discussion of platform dependency. As large travel groups continue to aggregate more products from the customer’s flight to their hotel, activity, and cruise within the same ecosystem, commission, data ownership, and direct customer relationships become more critical for independent businesses.

Cruise connection for Turkey

In recent years, Turkey has been trying to develop cruise traffic through Istanbul, Kuşadası, Bodrum, İzmir, and various ports.

The presence of countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, and Spain among e-hoi’s strong source markets in Europe is also a development to be monitored for Turkish destinations.

If Trip.com technology is more tightly integrated with e-hoi’s inventory, new distribution channels could emerge for selling additional hotel nights, flights, or experiences to cruise customers coming from Europe in Turkey.

The extent to which this will happen depends on the parties' future product and integration strategies.

Stafflink’s view

Trip.com’s investment in e-hoi demonstrates a new trend in the growth of online travel platforms: entering more specialized segments through acquisitions after scaling general travel products.

In our view, cruise is a suitable area for this model. Because the product is complex, customer spending is high, and there is potential to connect flights, hotels, transfers, and destination activities.

The important question for hotels and tourism businesses is not how many new cruise customers Trip.com will gain. The main issue is which distribution channels the hotel, transfer, restaurant, and experience products used by these customers during their travels will be purchased from.

As large platforms continue to aggregate more of the travel chain within a single ecosystem, it will become increasingly important for businesses to maintain direct customer relationships alongside a multi-channel strategy.