Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Tongcheng Travel 2023 Q4 and annual results announcement. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to the first speaker today, Ms. Kylie Yeung, Investor Relations Director. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Welcome to Tongcheng Travel's 2023 Q4 and annual results conference call. I'm Kylie Yeung, Investor Relations Director of the company. Joining us today on the conference call are our Executive Director and CEO, Mr. Heping Ma, our CFO, Mr. Julian Fan, and our Head of Capital Markets, Ms. Joyce Li. For today's call, our management team will provide a review of the company's performance in the Q4. Hope will brief us on the company's performance. Joyce will discuss our business and operational highlights, and then Julian will address the details of financial performance accordingly. We'll take your questions during the Q&A section that follows. As always, our presentation contains forward-looking statements.
Such statements are based on management's current expectations and current market operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the company's actual results, performance, or achievements to differ from those in the forward-looking statements. This presentation also contains some unaudited non-IFRS financial measures. They should be considered in addition to, but not as a substitute for, measures of the company's financial performance prepared in accordance with IFRS. For a detailed discussion of non-IFRS measures, please refer to our disclosure documents in the IR section of our website. Now, let me introduce our CEO, Hope. Hope, please go ahead.
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Okay, good evening, everyone. Welcome to our Q4 and annual earnings call. 2023 was a thrilling and extraordinary year for the Chinese travel industry and our company. Throughout the year, we witnessed remarkable growth of domestic travel demand and the sensational growth of our business. This year, we achieved significant breakthroughs and established numerous milestones. Our annual GMV, revenue, and adjusted net profit all reached record highs, with our revenue for the year exceeding CNY 10 billion for the first time, thanks to our highly devoted team with strong execution capabilities. In addition, our annual paying user also reached 240 million this year, which is a strong testament to the continued expansion of our service and brand influence. In the past year, we seized on the surging travel demand and accelerated our business expansion strategy.
We not only solidified our domestic market position but also continued to explore the international markets. While seeking high growth in our core business, we also embarked on exploring new business opportunities, thus building the company's second growth driver. This strategy not only fortified our foothold in the travel industry but also laid a solid foundation for the company's long-term sustainable development. Although we have encountered various difficulties in the past three years, our pioneering spirit and innovation capability have enabled us to swim against the tide and seize market opportunities, thus sustaining the industry-leading growth. The rapid growth of the travel industry in 2023, coupled with our company's exceptional performance, has significantly bolstered my confidence in the future development. Entering 2024, domestic travel sentiment remains high.
During the past Chinese New Year holidays, we were thrilled to witness significant growth in our business compared to 2023, with users' enthusiasm for travel consistently remaining at elevated levels. We believe that 2024 will be a year of continuous iteration and growth for the company, and we're committed to implementing our core strategies. On one side, we will delve into the industry chain and seek more long-term growth opportunities while maintaining robust growth in our mature businesses. On the other side, we will expand into the international market while continuing to tap into the potential of the domestic market. In terms of operations, we will further optimize our traffic operations and explore various ecosystems to diversify our traffic channels. Moreover, we will continue to refine our product strategy and membership program, aiming to enhance repurchase rates and use value.
In 2024, we aim not only for near-term success but also for long-term ambitions. With our exceptional innovation capability and humble attitude, we're poised to achieve groundbreaking advancements and further solidify our competitive advantages within the travel industry. At the same time, we will spare no effort to leverage our technology and internet expertise to empower industry partners and support the sustainable development of the industry. Next, I will hand over the call to Joyce. She will share with you our business and operational highlights of the Q4 of 2023. Joyce, please go ahead.
Thank you. 2023 has been a miraculous year for us, with travel sentiment and demand staying high throughout the whole year. We firmly pushed ahead with our strategic priorities and managed to grow our business even larger and broader. As Hope has mentioned, both our user base and business scale reached new highs during the year. Entering the last quarter of 2023, which is normally a low season for the travel industry, we, however, maintained strong growth and, as always, outperformed the industry as a whole. Our accommodation business, which has been a profound influence in target markets, especially in low-tier cities, continued to exhibit robust growth even on the slack season, with domestic room nights sold posting an impressive growth of 17% when comparing with the Q4 of 2019.
For the past years, we've been proactive in exploring hotel stay scenarios and addressing the underlying needs of our users. With these consistent efforts, we've tapped into varied scenarios such as stays surrounding exams, e-sports, music festivals, concerts, and family tours, contributing to the growth of our business. For the past quarter, we put more effort in exam-ready scenarios during peak exam periods and launched more precise marketing campaigns to reach out to our target users. Meanwhile, cross-sell continued to play a crucial role in growing the business, and the 15-day cross-selling rate increased quarter by quarter during the past year. Moreover, continuous efforts were made to rebuild our international business with a focus on bringing more international suppliers and highlighting our user interaction.
Besides value-added product services, continuously contribute meaningfully to our business as constant attempts were made to better satisfy users' needs before and during their stays at hotels. Our transportation business, which has further solidified its market presence in the past year, maintained satisfying growth for the last quarter, despite the fact that the Q4 is usually the lowest season for the transportation industry. With regard to the air ticketing business, it continued to see reinforced market positions in advantageous regions, as well as increased market share in some under-penetrated areas of higher-tier cities. It also showed increasing penetration of college students and business travelers as a result of persistent efforts to diversify our user base. At the same time, our international business has made further progress in the Q4 as we launched aggressive marketing campaigns which have attracted a great amount of users.
For the Q4, our total air ticketing volume increased by more than 16% from 2019's level, far better than the industry overall recovery. As for the train ticketing business, we remain focused on reinforcing operations as well as optimizing products and services to provide users with seamless travel experience. Our smart queuing systems not only play a crucial role in satisfying users' underlying needs, especially when there are supply shortages, but also contribute significantly to the revenue of the business. For the past years, we have expanded our footprint into the bus ticketing and car-hailing business upon the rising demand for local and short-haul travel so as to better serve users' needs. During the past year, we continuously enhanced operational efficiency and monetization capability of the two businesses.
Empowering the industry and supply chain, as well as pushing for international business, has been two of the strategic priorities for us, which we believe will open up new growth drivers for the company in the coming future. Our hotel management business, a key part of the strategies, has made a momentum advantage over the past year, with around 1,400 hotel stores in operation and more than 700 in pipeline by the end of 2023, almost double the size of tours as of the end of 2022. For the coming year, we will remain focused on expanding the coverage of the business with a portfolio of 10 major brands ranging from media to high-stars. As for the package tour business, rebuilding supply chain, restructuring business systems, as well as building online and offline channels, has been the main theme for the year.
In the Q4, we also completed the acquisition of Beijing Tongcheng Tourism, a combination of several leading regional travel agency companies, which we believe will further reinforce our influence along the supply chain. On top of that, we set our efforts in expanding our international business not only in urban travel but also in overseas markets such as Southeast Asian countries and Japan. Over the past years, our user base has grown dramatically and reached all-time highs in 2023, thanks to our effective investments in broader channels, both online and offline. Throughout the quarter, Tencent ecosystem, in particular the Mini Program, remains the most stable and productive channel for us, as consistent efforts were made to refine operation and enhance efficiency at multiple fronts within the ecosystem. In the meantime, more efforts were emphasized on diversifying our traffic sources.
Our standalone app grew significantly for the Q4, mainly thanks to our signature marketing campaign that caters to the preference of younger users by incorporating trending issues. Moreover, our Mini Program in Alipay also showed a drastic growth quarter-over-quarter, with efforts being stepped up to explore the potential of the ecosystem. As for the offline user acquisition channels, the public transit initiative continued to expand its footprint across the country and subsequently added to the growth of our user base. During the last quarter, we successfully tapped into the metro system of Shanghai and Wuxi, followed by Suzhou in late January, a growing recognition of our operational capabilities and product development in the public transportation system.
With efforts above, our MPUs for the Q4 exhibited impressive growth of more than 54% year-over-year to 37.5 million, while our 12-month paying users zoomed larger to a record high of 235 million, an increase of 25% from last year. We understand the power of brands with an aspiration to create a fun and entertaining image among target users, especially the younger generations. During the past year, we launched a variety of innovative marketing campaigns such as e-sports games, open-door marketplaces, and music festivals, so as to further strengthen connections with the younger users. This winter, we see the momentum of ski fever among young people and roll out a series of ski challenges in Xinjiang and Jilin, which attract thousands of ski participants and stirred widespread discussion among ski enthusiasts.
With this novelty, we aim to continuously create products and services in a way that appeals to young people. Moreover, our Black Whale members' program continues to play a key role in improving our user loyalty. During the quarter, we further refined our operations and introduced more benefits to Black Whale members, such as price correction, fee cancellation, and exclusive travel consultancy and customer service. As of the end of December, the accumulated amount of Black Whale members exceeded 47 million, with up more than 2.5 times that of the general members. As a leading OTA in China, we're entirely committed to empowering the industry partners with our technology and internet expertise so as to build a highly resilient and efficient ecosystem. By utilizing our digitalization capability and profound user insights, we will help nearly 100 airports in digital transformation and transit product development.
During the quarter, we continue to expand cooperation with airports. In November, we signed a strategic agreement with Chengdu Shuangliu Airport, aiming to collaborate in establishing the airport as a transit hub in the region. Meanwhile, we've developed a comprehensive portfolio of PMS brands that facilitate daily operation of individual hotels, chain hotels, and alternative accommodation. In addition to airports and hotels, we also endeavor to enhance the digitalization capability of tourist destinations and attractions. Over the last quarter, we joined hands with Changbai Mountain and built an intelligent tourist service platform that integrates local food, accommodation, transportation, and entertainment. On the other side, we prioritize our user and spare no effort in delivering a superior travel experience. Our intelligent question system remains the cornerstone in satisfying user needs. It provides users with tailor-made and well-suited travel solutions based on their preference.
For our customer service, we persistently introduce AI technology into varied scenarios in an effort to improve efficiency and the quality of customer service. In 2023, we were selected by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as an excellent case in terms of timely responses to user demand. Facing the ever-changing external environment, we deeply understand the importance of sustainability. As such, we are determined to contribute to the sustainable development of the tourism industry in China. In early 2023, we launched a program called Tongcheng Thousand Villages and a drive-through village across China built sustainable tourism models and promoted a green economy. As a key part of the program, we also rolled out training programs for the tourism professionals in terms of digital operation and marketing of local tourism so as to foster more talents for the industry.
Moreover, our Lindu Warm Village project, which was once a remote village in Suzhou, now a popular countryside resort, attracted more than 1 million visitors in 2023, and it was listed as an exemplary case of rural revitalization. On top of that, we also put more emphasis on our ESG performance and increased efforts to catch up with the world's best practice. For the past year, our MSCI ESG rating was given double A grade for a second consecutive year, and it was also made into S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook China 2023. All this demonstrated our excellence in ESG performance. Looking into the future, we will remain committed to promoting the sustainable growth of the industry as well as society as a whole. I'll stop here and turn over the call to our CFO, Julian.
He will share with us detailed financial results for the Q4 and the whole year. Julian, please go ahead.
Thank you, Joyce. Good evening, everyone. Despite the Q4 being a traditional slack season for the travel, we have witnessed a resilient demand for various travel experiences as we swiftly navigated this dynamic and promising landscape. Our success in outstripping the industry is largely owed to our effective exploration in various travel scenarios and our dedication to fulfilling the diverse needs of our users, from short-haul to long-haul travels, from leisure to business travels. Our core businesses have delivered outstanding results, and we have made remarkable progress in our new businesses that are going to fuel our future expansion. In the Q4 of 2023, we obtained excellent outcomes for both top line and bottom line.
We reported net revenue of CNY 3.1 billion, representing a 110% year-over-year increase from the same period of 2022 or a 61% year-over-year increase from the same period of 2019. We maintained stringent cost control while proactively preparing for Chinese New Year of 2024 through effective marketing campaigns and advertisement. We sustained robust net profit growth with a solid net margin, largely attributable to our revenue expansion and elevated operational leverage. Our adjusted net profit amounted to CNY 483 million with a 15.3% net adjusted margin. The consolidation of Beijing Tongcheng Tourism in December had a certain impact on the net margin for the Q4. Our accommodation reservation visits experienced remarkable growth and achieved CNY 882 million for the Q4 of 2023, representing a 73% increase from the same period in 2022 or a 42% increase from the same period of 2019.
Our domestic room nights registered over 70% growth for the quarter versus the same period in 2019, mainly attributable to our consistent and effective market penetration strategies. We also focused on cross-selling strategies, leveraging the significant traffic from our transportation business to enhance our accommodation business. This approach boosted not only our room nights sold but also user loyalty and value. In the Q4 of 2023, hotel ADR improved year-over-year, primarily fueled by demand rebound. The blended take rate decreased year-over-year, largely due to our strategic decisions to further capture market opportunities. Transportation ticketing revenue for the Q4 stood at CNY 1.5 billion, representing a 95% increase compared with the same period of 2022 or a 25% increase compared with the same period of 2019.
The recovery in demand across various travel scenarios uplifted our transportation ticketing volume in the Q4, which further enhanced the monetization of VES offerings. Our total air ticketing volume increased by over 16% compared with the same period of 2019, thanks to our relentless efforts to gain market share. Our train ticketing revenue also witnessed a remarkable growth compared with the 2019 level, driven by effective execution in optimizing monetization and operational efficiency in this segment. Other visits achieved admirable results again, with revenue reaching CNY 789 million in the Q4, representing a 236% increase year-over-year or a 417% increase from the same period in 2019. The robust growth was mainly attributable to the excellent performance of our advertisement business, Black Whale membership, corporate travel, hotel management, and package tour business.
Through our strategic acquisition and effective expansion, we have attained phenomenal progress in our hotel management business. We have also completed the acquisition of Beijing Tongcheng Tourism, which we believe will add to the growth of our package tour business since December. We hold a strong belief that these businesses will enhance our company's growth prospects in the forthcoming period. In terms of the profitability, our gross margin was 69.2% for the Q4 of 2023, slightly dropped from the same period in 2022, mainly due to the consolidation of Beijing Tongcheng Tourism in December. Our adjusted EBITDA achieved RMB 716 million with a 22.8% margin, which represented an increase from 16.3% when compared with quarter four last year. Adjusted net profit achieved RMB 483 million with a 15.3% margin, a tremendous increase from 2.5% in quarter four 2022.
The increase in our adjusted net margin was mainly fueled by the effective marketing strategies and enhanced operational leverage. Service development and administrative expenses in the Q4 of 2023 increased by 12% from the same period of 2022. Excluding share-based compensation charges, service development and administrative expenses in total accounted for 16.9% of revenue in the Q4 compared with 31% of revenue in the same period in 2022. Selling and marketing expenses in the Q4 of 2023 increased by 73% from the same period of 2022. Excluding share-based compensation charges, selling and marketing expenses accounted for 35.4% of revenue in the Q4 compared with 42.8% of revenue in the same period in 2022. As of December 31st, 2023, the balance of cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investment was CNY 9.3 billion. We appreciate our shareholder support in the past.
Our board of directors has approved the proposed payment of final cash dividends of HKD 0.15 per share, reflecting our determination to enhance shareholder capital return. Now, let's move to our results for fiscal year 2023. China's travel industry experienced an encouraging revival in the past year. We successfully seized opportunities and obtained significant growth throughout the whole year. Our net revenue in 2023 achieved CNY 11.9 billion, representing an 81% year-over-year increase or a 61% increase compared with the 2019 level. Our accommodation reservation revenue achieved CNY 3.9 billion in 2023, representing a 62% increase from 2022 or a 65% increase compared with 2019. Transportation ticketing revenue for 2023 was CNY 6.0 billion, representing a 79% increase compared with 2022 or a 34% increase compared with 2019.
Other business revenue for 2023 achieved CNY 2.0 billion, representing a 149% increase compared with 2022 and 280% increase compared with 2019. In terms of the profitability, our gross margin in 2023 increased to 73.5% compared with 72.6% in 2022, mainly driven by revenue scaling up. For the full year of 2023, adjusted EBITDA achieved CNY 3.1 billion compared to CNY 1.4 billion in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 26.3% in 2023, increased from 21.8% in 2022. Adjusted net profit achieved CNY 2.2 billion in 2023 compared to CNY 646 million in 2022. The net margin was 18.5% in 2023, increased from 9.8% in 2022. Going forward, we will continue to invest in products and technology, especially in preparation for our global expansion. Meanwhile, we will also increase investments in directly buying our traffic channels to further enhance our market share while maintaining a healthy profit margin.
Over the past year, we've observed some fundamental changes in users' travel behavior as well as the overall travel industry. The younger generation tends to travel more spontaneously and visit trending niche destinations that could spark discussions on social media platforms. Moreover, local travel bureaus have become more open-minded and embraced the changes to better serve tourists' needs through improving travel services, which further heightens travel enthusiasm. The travel fever in Zibo, Tianjin, and Harbin are good examples of those changes. Entering 2024, we continue to see flourishing demand for travel across the country, especially during the Chinese New Year, in which we saw total room nights and air ticketing volume growing respectively around 35% and 45% year-over-year, with international room nights and international air ticketing volumes jumping more than 350% and 600%, respectively.
We are far more optimistic that China's travel industry will continue to see robust and dynamic growth this year, as Chinese people, especially younger ones, have become more inclined towards experiential consumption and have made travel an essential standing of their daily lives. We are fortunate to be in the golden age of the travel industry. We are dedicated to rapidly growing our core OTA business, which is the backbone of our company. At the same time, we will continue to pursue new growth drivers through innovation. We aim to establish a strong foothold in the international travel market while further expanding our hotel management and package tour business. Moreover, we will continuously enhance our traffic operation efficiency and seek more diversified traffic sources and monetization scenarios. By adhering to our strategic visions, we have confidence in maintaining industry-leading growth and decent profitability.
We will also focus more on our ESG performance and create a more positive impact for our stakeholders, including our users, suppliers, employees, and shareholders. With that, operator, we are ready to take questions now. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask questions, please press star 11 and wait for a name to be announced. To cancel your request, please press the star 11 again. One moment for the first question. Our first question comes from Brian Gong from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thanks, management, for taking my question. Congratulations on the solid results. I have two questions. First is, how do we see travel industry performance post the Chinese New Year, and how does management see the industry outlook and our performance for 2024? The second question is that I noticed we consolidate that one package tour business in the Q4. Can management share a bit more of the scale of its revenue and profits, and what's the business growth outlook, and what synergies we see for this asset with other businesses? Thank you.
Thanks, Brian. I think Joyce will give you some colors on the Chinese New Year's performance and after Chinese New Year's performance, and then I will address the question about the total outlook of this year. For the second question also, we will talk about later.
Thank you, Brian. First, I will share with you what we have observed for the latest market situation and business performance. We all know that the travel industry during the Chinese New Year holiday was very strong. So according to the industry data, the railway passenger volume had increased by 38%, while air passenger volume saw a 50% increase when compared to last year. For the entire Q1 of 2024, we still observed robust growth in domestic transportation and accommodation business. Both leisure travel and business travel showed promising trends after Chinese New Year this year. Additionally, it is worth to mention that international air ticketing and accommodation business emerged as significant growth drivers for us, with more than 200% growth year-over-year.
For the Q2, we believe that the flourishing demand in the Q1 will continue given the resilience and vitality of the Chinese travel industry. It is evident that the consumer consistently prioritized spending on travel experience. We have also noticed more diverse travel preference, creating additional opportunities for the industry. For example, it has been becoming increasingly popular for a younger generation to combine travel or hotel stays with esports events, music festivals, and concerts, etc., as we mentioned before. We will continue to explore the potentials of dorm rooms, which contribute quite significantly to room night sales in quarter two. We are also leveraging our competitive advantage to seize market opportunities presented by these trends. Additionally, we will also focus on enhancing user value and expand our business scope, including the international business and the package tour business, to better capture business opportunities.
I think these strategies will enable us to consistently outpace industry growth.
Yes. Just like Joyce just mentioned, in terms of the overall outlook in 2024 and the following, actually, we hold a very strong belief in the fundamental growth potential of China's travel industry. As a strong performance during the Chinese New Year has once again proven the robust demand and also the resilience of the industry. On the demand side, we have observed significant shifts in consumer behavior leading to a surge in diverse travel needs, particularly noteworthy is the increasing preference among individuals, spanning both younger and elder generations, for experiential consumption over physical goods. With the rapid acceleration of this trend toward experiential consumption, we anticipate a sustained and robust expansion in the overall capacity of the domestic travel market in the coming years, in the coming following quarters.
In fact, the overall hotel room rate and air ticket price of the industry have remained quite high due to the surging travel enthusiasm since last year. We haven't observed any impact of the consumption downgrade on the travel industry. On the supply end, as we all noticed that recently, local travel bureaus and attractions have adopted a more open-minded and innovative approach to cater to tourists' needs by improving their travel services. This proactive stance further amplifies travel enthusiasm. Besides, we anticipate that ongoing improvements in infrastructure, including the development of the new airport and expansion of the high-speed train network, will not only enhance the travel convenience but also stimulate domestic travel demand. Additionally, we will continue to enjoy the benefits of increasing online penetration of travel services, especially in lower-tier cities.
Moreover, the Chinese government has demonstrated a strong commitment to bolstering the travel industry, as this can be a crucial catalyst for job creation, livelihood protection, and also consumption enhancement. The Chinese government also mentioned that it would promote the development of the travel industry by cultivating smart tourism and digital transformation of tourism services. On the other hand, outbound travel and overseas local markets will also provide immense growth potential for our company. We expected that the supply of outbound travel products and services will greatly recover this year. We are ramping up our efforts to extend outbound visits by enriching our products and services offerings, improving our service quality, and bolstering market initiatives to better engage with our users.
For overseas local markets, we also accelerate our expansion plan through partnering or investing in overseas TFCs, as well as establishing offices in key overseas markets like Singapore, Japan, and the United States. So we remain optimistic about the future growth prospects of China's travel industry. We will continue fortifying our core competitiveness advantages, focusing on improving our execution capabilities, optimizing our range of products and services, and strengthening our brand's influence to achieve sustainable development. And in terms of the tourism business, I think Joyce will give you more explanation.
Yes. In terms of your second questions, I would like to address it firstly from the whole business. Then I will give you some details in terms of the Tongcheng Tourism Investment Group. First, I would like to say that the package tour business is quite fragmented. There are more than 40,000 travel agencies. But we believe the market provides tremendous growth potentials. It's quite a huge market in China. Although online penetration of the travel product services is increasing, a lot of people still prefer joining package tours, which can provide them with a travel experience, especially from the convenience side. Not to mention that there are more tailored, themed, or high-end package tour products these days, which can fulfill diversified customer demands.
We accept that the disposable income of the population in China will continue to grow in the future, so more people will have the desire and the capital for international travel. Since the majority of the population in China don't have much outbound travel experience, we believe they will prefer to start their outbound travel journeys by joining package tours at the very beginning. Thus, there will be a significant rise in demand for outbound package tours in the future. As an important player in the travel industry, we would also like to participate in the package tour markets so as to expand our business scope to provide all-around services to our customers and to drive our long-term growth.
We believe the package tour business will bring significant synergies and more advantages, which allow us to capture the immense market opportunities from the extensive potential customers, brand advantages, regional market advantage, and product advantage. For the past years, we have accumulated a huge user base in the past. We believe that potentially some of these users will have demand for package tour products as well, especially for outbound travel. We could provide traffic support to our package tour business. The range of products of our package tour business is extensive, including domestic, outbound, inbound, cruise, visa application service, study tours, exhibitions, sports events, etc. Our package tour business possesses strong product design capabilities, particularly excels in outbound tours, study tours, etc.
The acquisition of Beijing Tongcheng Tourism Investment Group was completed at the end of November, so there will only be limited impact on our financials in 2023. This acquisition allows us to extend our business to provide more product services to our users and generate additional value to our company in the future. So currently, for the business, it will continue to improve this year. The domestic business has recovered to 80% of 2019's level in 2023 in terms of the Beijing Tongcheng Tourism Investment Group. It may recover or even surpass 2019's level in 2024.
Though the full recovery of outbound package tour business to 2019's level may still be limited by the flight capacity, visa issue, and supply chain issue, however, we are quite optimistic that the outbound business will rebound and grow continuously this year, with positive signals of increasingly favorable visa-free policies to Chinese travelers and a gradual recovery of flight capacity. From the margin side, we can understand from the peers in the market that the GP margin and net profit margin of the package tour business will be lower than OTA due to the difference in business nature and accounting policies. However, it will increase our revenue and profit and will be our future growth driver. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for the questions. Once again, to ask questions, please press star 11. One moment for the next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ellie Jiang from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much, management, for taking my question. I just have two follow-ups. The first is on the M&As. It seems like we've been quite active in the entire M&A side. Just can management share some thoughts and strategies behind this progress? And for the future, how do we evaluate potential targets? That's the first one. And then the second is really about the earlier comments towards the overseas development. Can management shed some light on the detailed kind of strategy on how do we plan to capture this demand? I guess right now, we already see some of our peers spending quite some resources and years in the outbound side. Just wondering, how do we really compare ourselves and compare our overall capabilities in supply chain or consumer mindshare?
When we capture this overseas demand, do we think these are coming from the new users or existing cohorts? Thank you.
Thank you, Ellie. Yeah. In the past two years, we're pretty active on the M&A acquisition. Until now, we think that historical cases are very successful because, one, for those cases, help the company for the revenue growth and also for the profit growth. And the second thing, the cases, the M&A cases, offer more products and services, different products and services, to our existing customers. And also, it's very helpful on our ARPU improvement because we have huge traffic, and it could be better for us to do the cross-sell from our existing traffic to the new product and service offerings. And in the future, we will continue to seek M&A acquisition targets and opportunities, which align with our strategic priorities to drive the future growth of our business.
We will continue to deepen our layout of supply chain resources to strengthen the company's foundation in the travel industry and continuously enhance our influence in the industry. Meanwhile, we will look into opportunities which can further enrich our products and services, as well as generating synergies with our current business. We actually will also seek opportunities which can benefit our growth in domestic and also in international markets. So that is our merger and acquisition strategies in this year and the following years. In terms of the outbound opportunities, Joyce, please.
Yeah. Thank you, Ellie. I think I have answered a little bit when I explained our rationale in terms of package tour business. So first, I would emphasize that we are confident about international business. We think that our international business will be flourishing this year. First, we think that from the macro situation, the outbound travel will exhibit strong growth due to the easier visa access and the gradual recovery of international flight capacity. And we would say that the recovery of our international business outperformed industry significantly. Our international air ticketing volume in the Q4 last year had registered around 15% growth when compared with 2019's level. But for the industry, international flight capacity only recovered to over 17% of 2019's level at the end of February.
But for us, we have witnessed a significantly fast growth in outbound business and expect to experience more than a twofold increase in volume in the Q1 of 2024 with our outstanding performance in certain key destinations like Thailand, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore. We have already initiated efforts to expand the growth of our international business. We have intensified our efforts to expand product service offerings for international travel by forming partnerships with leading international OTAs, hoteliers, international airlines, and a variety of overseas TFPs. We're committed to continuous exploration and innovation in new product services aiming to meet the demand of different users. We have also rolled out more marketing initiatives for international travel products aiming to enhance engagement with our users and capture their coverage opportunities.
As we have made significant growth in user base in the past few years, we believe that these users, given their anticipated future demand for outbound travel, will form the foundation for our expansion into the outbound travel market. Our focus will be on further developing outbound air ticketing, hotel booking, and package tour business. For OTA business, we will continue to enrich our supply chain and invest in research and development so as to further upgrade our outbound travel products and services. Recently, some of the key popular outbound travel destinations have announced visa-free policies for Chinese travelers, further facilitating the travel to these destinations. We'll be more aggressively investing into the market to grasp market opportunities. For package tour business, as I mentioned, we'll further expand our online and offline customer acquisition channels to capture the coverage opportunity of outbound travel.
We will also improve our product offerings and expand travel routes options while enhancing the overall customer experience. In conclusion, we'll put more emphasis on development of our international business, which will become an important growth driver for the company in the next few years. Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. Once again, to ask questions, please press star 11. One moment for the next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Poon from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, management. Congratulations on a very strong quarter. My question is related to our margin outlook in 2024. Given we are doing many new businesses and also we are consolidating new businesses, can you share with us how should we think about the margin in 2024? Thank you very much.
Thank you for the question, Alex. Actually, for our core OTA business, I have to mention the margins separately. For our core OTA business, the competition in domestic is actually modest, and the business model is very mature. We anticipate that the COGS, the service development, and the GMV percentage as of revenue still have some room to further optimize due to scalability. Meanwhile, as we persisted, the sales marketing dollar as of revenue would be relatively stable. We will invest any additional savings from scalability into outbound and international business. So in this period, actually, outbound and international business is a kind of investment. But in the long run, we believe the international business is more profitable than our domestic business due to the suppliers. We have a high take rate from the suppliers and also the high consumption power from the consumers.
So therefore, we aim for a stable or slightly improved net margin in 2024 for our core OTA business. For the tourism business that we acquired last year, I think Joyce just mentioned, we could anticipate a very hyper growth in revenue once the outbound package tour resumes in 2024 and beyond, along with further synergies with our established online business. Although the GP margin and NP margin of tourism business might be lower than our online business due to the differences in business models, the leadership position in the offline tourism sector maybe allows it to achieve higher and healthier margins compared with the industry peers and continuously contribute profits to our company. Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. There are no further questions at this time. Allow me to hand the call back to management for closing remarks.
Thank you. We are closing the call now. If you wish to check out our presentation and other financial information, please visit the IR section of our company website. Thank you, and see you next quarter.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect now.