Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Tongcheng Travel 2021 third quarter results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. Now I'd like to hand the conference over to Ms. Kylie Yeung, IR Director of Tongcheng Travel. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Welcome to Tongcheng Travel 2021 third quarter 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. Hope Ma, our CFO, Mr. Julian Fan, and our VP and Head of Capital Markets, Ms. Joyce Li. For today's call, our management team will provide a review of the company performance for the third quarter. Hope will walk us through the company's business performance for the third quarter. Joyce will discuss our operational highlights, and then Julian will address the details of financial performance accordingly. We'll take your questions during the Q&A sessions 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 financial measures, please refer to our disclosure document in the IR section of our website. Now, let me introduce our CEO, Hope. Hope, please go ahead.
Oh, thank you. Thank you, Kylie. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter earnings call. It's very nice to have you with us again. Thank you all for your continuous support in the past quarters. Since the first outbreak of COVID in early 2022 China's travel industry has seen profound changes from the demand end to the supply end. The consumers have already become accustomed to the uncertainties brought by COVID. Accordingly, they have switched to a more flexible travel mode. They are now more inclined to online booking and short-haul travels with no specific plans. Meanwhile, the supply end is seeing a speed-up in digitalization to adapt to a new normal under the impact of COVID.
These have not only posed challenges to all industry players, but more meaningfully, are also creating opportunities for the industry. In the face of these changes, we have realized that a more resilient and agile organizational structure will allow us to build deeper moats. That enable us to better address the new challenges as well as capturing the emerging opportunities. In late September this year, we initiated and quickly completed an organizational restructuring aiming to lay a more solid foundation for the upcoming challenges and opportunities. Under the new structure, the Accommodation and Local Consumption Business Group was set up to better serve users' emerging needs surrounding short-haul travel and local consumption. Transportation Business was consolidated as one business group to seek better internal synergies and higher efficiency.
While the Content and Leisure Travel Business Group with a new setup to explore the attention economy and shorten users' decision-making process by building travel content and providing diversified products and services. This year so far, the travel industry has been undergoing ups and downs as the coronavirus continued to evolve and uncertainties lingered on. Throughout the year, we maintained our flexible operational strategy, constantly demonstrating the resilience of our business amid the market fluctuation. We stepped up efforts in seizing recovery opportunities when demand was unleashed, and scaled down marketing investments when demand was dampened by the surges of COVID. With the aforementioned flexible operational strategy, an asset-light business model, and a strong execution capability, we continuously led the market recovery, and delivered solid results to pay back stakeholders trust and support.
In the past quarter, our accommodation business, though under the shadow of COVID surges, maintained its recovery momentum, and we further penetrated lower tier cities, and continued to increase market presence there. During the quarter, we dug deeper into users' potential needs under various scenarios, and operated precisely to absorb these corresponding demands, which added to the growth of our accommodation business. Meanwhile, cross-sell continued to play a key role in the growth of the business. At the same time, we consistently pushed ahead with our offline user acquisition initiatives by increasing hotel coverage and exploring more offline scenarios. For the third quarter, our domestic room nights sort of maintained a decent year-over-year growth of around 25% compared with 2019, with nearly 45% growth in lower tier cities.
Although the surges of COVID suppressed the willingness and demand for travel, we still managed to get the better out of the hardship and consistently outperformed industry peers. As for our air ticketing business, we made continuous efforts to reinforce our market position in some advantageous regions, as well as attracting new users through tailored products and services. Our air ticket volume, however, saw a single-digit decrease over 2019 level, mainly as a result of reduced long-haul travel during the summer vacation period, as strict travel restrictions were imposed nationwide to contain the spread of virus in Nanjing. Concerning our train ticket business, we remained focused on enhancing user value.
We provided users with customized various products and services to meet their needs under tighter supply control during the pandemic, as well as providing a better travel experience to retain users. Meanwhile, our intelligent Huixing system, which lies at the center of our intelligent transportation architecture, provides more customized travel solutions for users as we continue to optimize its algorithm and underlying supplies. Furthermore, we continuously dug into users' underlying needs and constantly enriched value-added products and services to provide them with convenience and comfort during their journeys. Our bus ticketing business, a key instrument for us to grow user base, maintained its thrilling growth over the third quarter, and we further rolled out bus ticket vending machines across the country, as well as exploring more offline scenarios.
By the end of September, we had more than 10,000 machines installed in almost all cities across mainland China. As a result, our bus ticket volume registered nearly 200% growth in the third quarter when compared with 2019. Over the last quarter, we also made more efforts in cross-selling other travel products to our bus ticketing users as a way to enhance monetization capability. The cross-sale rate in the bus ticketing sector improved quarter-over-quarter as we optimized the booking and transaction flows to better present products and services. In the following, we will remain focused on growing our user base while gradually stepping up efforts in better serving the sizable users of our bus ticketing business.
Throughout the year, the road to recovery has been rough and bumpy, amid uncertainties caused by strategic outbreaks of COVID. In the short run, the fluctuations will continue, and the road ahead remains uneven. However, we stand firm that China's travel industry has huge opportunities and growth potentials, especially in the market in lower tier cities. We will spare no effort to grow bigger and stronger. We will proactively engage in boosting the digitalization of China's travel industry through our advanced technology and internet expertise. Meanwhile, we will continue to pursue our core corporate value, customers come first as always, and provide users with easier and more joyful journeys. Last but not least, we will make greater efforts to fulfill our social responsibilities to create value for the society. With that, let me turn over the call to Joyce. She will walk you through our operational highlights for the third quarter. Joyce, please go ahead.
Thank you, Hope. The past quarter was like riding a rollercoaster. At the beginning of the summer vacation, we saw demand being quickly released with increasing willingness for travel in early to mid-July. Our MAUs also hit record high for the month. However, when strict travel restrictions were imposed nationwide as Delta variant spread from Nanjing to other regions in China, we saw demand being greatly depressed. The travel industry plunged into new lows in August. Later, it gradually bounced out in early September as soon as restrictions were relaxed. However, fluctuations persisted as confirmed cases continued to occur from time to time. Facing the huge fluctuations of the third quarter, we once again demonstrated the resilience of our business and managed to outperform the industry peers for another consecutive quarter.
In late July, we successfully renewed our contract with Tencent for another three years, with an additional three-year renewal priority thereafter, which enable us to continue providing hundreds of millions of internet users with our quality travel products and services at two entry points in WeChat Pay interface. Over the past quarter, we continuously sought deeper cooperation with Tencent to attract more users at different scenarios. We once again joined hands with the QQ Browser and launched tailor-made content feeds to stimulate interest in winning the younger generations. Meanwhile, we were entitled to more IP rights by Tencent, through which we're able to establish closer bonds with the younger users, as these IP rights are enormously popular among younger generations.
Worth mentioning, we were awarded the Best of the Year in 2021 Tencent Innovative Marketing Award in recognition of the originality of our phenomenal product, Blind Box of Air Tickets, which caused a widespread discussion over the online community. During the quarter, we made a continuous effort to diversify our traffic sources by cooperating with multiple online platforms in addition to Tencent ecosystem. Our standalone app has got featured on App Store for our innovative product, Blind Box, and successfully attracted more users for downloads and installations. Since last year, we've built a solid partnership with China's major handset vendors and have achieved a deeper cooperation with each other in multiple fronts.
For the third quarter, we further deepened the cooperation with one of the influential handset vendors and have our travel product services available on smart car system, through which we try to create diverse booking scenarios for users and hence improving user experience. Moreover, through product innovation and operation optimization, our conversion rate on handset vendor is on a steady uptrend. As a result, our operation in quick app is well-recognized by handset vendors and is deemed as industry benchmark. At the same time, we firmly pushed ahead with our offline user acquisition initiatives to further penetrate low-tier cities and enhance our brand awareness.
With our strong execution capability and a well-built relationship with suppliers, we continue to roll out bus ticketing vending machines across China and further increase geographical coverage in low-tier cities where bus is a dominant vehicle for travel. Meanwhile, we replaced the attraction ticket vending machine with a QR code scanning placard at tourist attractions to improve user acquisition efficiency. Moreover, we kept seeking new offline scenarios to capture more offline users. This initiative had brought us considerable amount of paying users in a cost-effective way, in particular, the bus ticketing vending machines. Furthermore, we continue to launch various marketing activities to elevate our brand influence, both in supply and user ends. In the third quarter, we further enriched our innovative marketing campaign, Forty-Eight Hours, targeting younger users to better serve their emerging needs for short-haul travel post-COVID.
We joined hands with Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and introduced a special session to promote local tourist resources and the cultural creative products, which attracted a handsome amount of younger users. Meanwhile, we had the Macao Government Tourism Office on board to help revitalize its post-COVID travel market by introducing Blind Boxes containing hotel coupons and tourist attraction tickets. Besides, our Black Whale membership program continued to grow in the third quarter as we made a deeper dive into users' underlying demand and introduced more tailor-made versions with a more diversified privileges. The cumulative number of loyalty programs further increased to around 11 million over the past quarter. To better engage with the younger users, we initiated a loyalty program called Campus Card, targeting university and vocational school students to enhance our brand awareness in the potential user group.
With aforementioned efforts, our average MAUs maintains growth momentum in the third quarter, even under the shadow of COVID reemergence, with a decent growth of 8.3% over 2019 level at around 276.9 million. Our average MPUs for the quarter stayed a record high of 33.6 million, with a year-over-year growth of 12.8% versus 2019. Mainly attribute to our effective online and offline acquisition initiatives, user-oriented product services and outstanding operational capability. More significantly, our twelve-month rolling paying users continue to expand and hit a new high of 196.1 million as of the end of September, representing a robust increase of 45% over 2019 level.
Since the merger in 2018, we have been pressing ahead with the cross-selling strategy to enhance traffic value and thus seeking further synergies. Over the past years, our one-trip cross-selling rate has greatly increased to double digits from a very low single digit. In the third quarter, we continued to leverage the traffic from the train ticketing business to nourish our air ticketing, accommodation and attraction ticketing business, although travel demand was eroded by strict travel restrictions. Aiming to transform from OTA to ITA, we are dedicated to enhancing both internal and external efficiency through our technology. For the external front, we are committed to empowering the business of our suppliers through our technology solutions and internet expertise. In the third quarter, we continued to expand strategic partnerships with airports.
We signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Gansu Civil Aviation Airport Group, in addition to Xi'an Airport and Dalian Airport, to help them build intelligent airports riding on our great algorithm capability and technology solutions. To provide tourists with the best experience in destinations and short-haul travel, as well as supporting smart travel development of Shaanxi Province, we worked together with the local tourism bureau and launched an intelligent tourism platform that contains functions such as online shopping service, visual maps, and select route recommendations. Moreover, we acquired a PMS company in the last quarter to further enhance our technological and service capabilities. This enabled us to build closer ties with supply end by providing our comprehensive solutions to more small and medium-sized hotels in low-tier cities to enhance their daily operational efficiency and ultimately elevating the online penetration rates and digitalization of the travel industry.
On the other hand, we consistently step up investments in technology to perfect users' experience and offer them a more joyful journey. We continue to optimize our intelligent Huixing system in terms of underlying supply and algorithm capability to aim high efficiency and better booking experience. Going deeper, this intelligent system is also capable of helping the government utilize the national transport network more efficiently by providing combined transport solutions. In addition, more functions were added to our AI customer service system to enhance customer service efficiency. The new functions enable the intelligent system to identify customer service demand and respond spontaneously. As a socially responsible company, we place emphasis on the well-being of the society as well as the natural environment.
We recognize and understand the increasing importance of sustainable development. Lately, we set up a board level ESG committee and a corporate level ESG and data security committee, respectively, in an endeavor to seek sustainable growth that benefits both the company and society. Under the committee, we have several task forces to further improve our ESG initiatives and help us better fulfill our corporate social responsibilities. We have task force responsible for the data security, which will focus on optimizing our data protection and security mechanisms, so as to build an impeccable network firewall and best comply with the evolving regulations, and hence, better protect users' personal information interests. We always put our user interests first and strive to protect their rights.
When the pandemic was causing large scale uncertainty of travel, we act swiftly to the changing conditions and launch a series of measures, including non-penalty refund policy to help them plan their trips and protect their safety. We also launched a special booking interface that is tailor-made for the elderly in the past quarter. This simplified booking portal aims to facilitate online booking for the elderly and provide them with a more convenient and enjoyable experience. On the other hand, we endeavor to contribute more to society with our industry expertise. We join hands with a local government in Suzhou and co-built a rural resort community to revitalize the local travel industry, which was well-recognized and selected as a paradigm for rural revitalization.
To facilitate recovery of local economies, we also work with several local governments to help promote local produce and culture creative products through our platform by utilizing our huge traffic and internet expertise. By leveraging our brand influence and technology, we will continuously participate in the social activities to better contribute to our society. With that, I'll hand over the quarter update for Julian. He will share with you our detailed financial results for the third quarter. Julian, please go ahead.
Thank you, Joyce. Good evening, everyone. In the third quarter of 2021, we reported a net revenue of RMB 1.94 billion, representing a 1.3% year-over-year increase from the same period of 2020, or a 94% recovery over 2019 level. If we exclude the impact of the frozen international travel and the reduced prepurchased business, the like-for-like net revenue achieved a 4% growth compared with the third quarter of 2019. In the past quarter, as Hope and Joyce mentioned, we have undergone tremendous fluctuations amid various resurgence in many provinces, massive flooding in Hunan Province, and terrifying typhoon in eastern China. However, we found demand for local travel in low-tier cities remained resilient, as those markets were less impacted by COVID, which to a great extent prompted the recovery of our business.
For the third quarter, our MAUs, MPUs, room night sold, bus volume, and ride-hailing volume continued to stay high. We are convinced that every effort we made in low-tier cities was deserved. Looking at the bottom line, we achieved a CNY 351 million adjusted net profit with 18.1% net margin compared with 18.6% net margin in quarter two, 2021. Our management team, as always, kept monitoring COVID situation to timely adjust the marketing strategy in different channels and in different areas so as to minimize the impact of COVID on our business, as well as pursuing a decent growth while keeping a better ROI. In the third quarter, we reported CNY 41.1 billion GMV with a 3% year-over-year increase compared with 2020 or an 86% recovery from 2019 level.
The growth rate of our net revenue in this quarter surpassed that of the GMV when compared with 2019, mainly due to higher VAS attach rate in both accommodation and transportation segments, as well as the well-executed one-stop-shop strategy. The ADR and ATV still dropped when compared with 2019. Accommodation reservation revenue achieved RMB 645 million, representing a 6% decrease from 2020 or a 7% decrease from 2019. If we exclude the negative impact of international travel and prepurchase business, the like-for-like accommodation reservation revenue recorded a 2% growth compared with 2019. Even under such a hard time in the past quarter, domestic room nights still booked around 25% growth compared with the same period of 2019. It significantly beat the industry growth.
Geographically, room night sold grew over 10% and nearly 45% respectively in higher tier cities and lower tier cities, thanks to the booming demand for staycation and short-haul travel in the summer, the strong execution of cross-selling within the company, and the accurate offline and online marketing strategy. The ADR still dropped compared with 2019 due to short-term headwinds faced by the hotel industry, as well as our strategy to further penetrate lower tier cities. The take rate continuously improved compared with that of 2019 as a result of increased revenue contribution from VAS, which was attributable to the effective implementation of our accommodation one-stop shop strategy.
Transportation ticketing revenue for the third quarter of 2021 was RMB 1,125 million, representing a 7% increase compared with the same period of 2020 or a 1.3% decrease compared with the same period of 2019. The revenue almost recovered to pre-COVID level, mainly due to users' enhanced willingness to purchase our VAS products and services, in particular, when supplies were in shortage. The recovery of air and train volumes was much better than the industry, and the bus ticket volume achieved a nearly 250% growth compared with 2019, mainly due to our strategic focus on investments in offline bus ticketing vending machine across the country.
Other business revenue was RMB 170 million in the third quarter, representing a 3% decrease from 2020 or a 26% decrease from 2019. During the past quarter, the TMC business and advertisement business were negatively impacted by COVID resurgence. Gross margin was 73.9% for the third quarter of 2021, increased from 72% for the same period in 2020 and 66.9% for the same period in 2019. The continuous margin improvement was mainly driven by our streamlined operations, intelligent customer service ability, and revenue mix change in the past year. In the third quarter of 2021, our adjusted EBITDA achieved RMB 526 million with a 27.1% EBITDA margin, improved from a 24.8% quarter-over-quarter and from 26.1% year-over-year.
The adjusted net profit achieved RMB 351 million, with margin slightly decreased to 18.1% from 18.6% quarter-over-quarter and from 19.5% year-over-year. Moreover, the impact driven by contract renewal for the two entry points in Weixin has been considered since this quarter and was fully offset by the enhancement of marketing efficiency and operating leverage. Service development and administrative expenses in the third quarter of 2021 decreased by 4% from the same period of 2019. Excluding share-based compensation charges, service development and administrative expenses in total accounted for 19.9% of revenue in the third quarter, compared with 18.6% of revenue in the same period of 2020 and 19.4% of revenue in previous quarter.
Selling and marketing expenses in the third quarter of 2021 increased by 25% from the same period of 2019 and decreased by 11% from the previous quarter. During this quarter, we strategically increased the investment in marketing campaigns to seize the recovery opportunity in July. Meanwhile, we closely monitor the market and COVID situation and promptly reduce some of the marketing investment in August to make the investment more effective, aiming for better ROI. Excluding share-based compensation charges, selling and marketing expenses accounted for 40.2% of revenue in the third quarter, compared with 37.6% of revenue in the same period of 2020 and 41.1% of revenue in previous quarter. As of September 30, 2021, the balance of cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investment was RMB 6.3 billion.
Now, let's turn to our expectation for the fourth quarter of 2021. Hard mode lasts into the winter and strict travel restrictions remain imposed. For the fourth quarter, we still see varied challenges and uncertainties caused by COVID. Based on the current situation, we are now expecting our revenue to decrease by 5%-10% over 2019 level, or to be in the range of 3% decrease to 2% increase compared with the same quarter of 2020. Our adjusted net profit is expected to be in the range of RMB 220 million-RMB 270 million. This forecast reflects our current and preliminary view, which is subject to changes. In the short run, we are still faced with varied uncertainties caused by COVID.
However, we remain confident that the company, after almost two years of cultivation and preparation, is now in the best position to capture the post-COVID recovery opportunities. We'll continue to outperform the market whatever challenges we encounter ahead. With that, operator, we are ready to take questions now. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to withdraw your request, please press the pound or hash key. Please limit to two questions at a time. Our first question comes from the line of Brian Gong from Citi. Please ask your question.
Good evening, management. Thanks for taking my question. My first question is about, you know, with recent restrictions gradually under control, have we seen any travel demand recovery? How should we look at growth for next year, given a low base for this year? My second question is, you know, with strong increase in bus ticketing volume, may I know, what's your latest repurchase rate? Can management share, you know, their latest cross-selling rate for those bus ticketing users? Thank you.
Hi, Brian. Thank you for the question. Before I would like to put some comments on the next year's guidance or next year's growth and bottom line guidance, I would like to share more color on the recent situation, recent market and in-industry situations. Actually, getting to the October, you know, as more cases resurged in several regions, it is believed that China will continue with very strict control measures, especially during the Olympic Winter Games preparation in February next year or even later next year. Thus, we would rather be more prudent to the market uncertainties due to the stricter restrictions, especially on business travel and in metropolis like Beijing.
You know, last week, just last week, I think, Beijing announced stricter travel restrictions than ever to control the pandemic situation, and a lot of flights and trains to and from Beijing were totally canceled. Actually, for the overall market or the industry data, the air passenger traffic in October was around 30% lower than the same period in 2019. The number of passengers by train in October also declined by about 25% when compared with the same period in 2019. Nevertheless, we were still able to record better than the industry business volume in October. The overall market got worse and worse since the end of October.
The latest industry data has not been announced yet, but so far in November, we have observed a 25% decline and 30% decline in volume for flights and trains versus 2019 for our company, respectively, due to long-haul and business travel was very negatively impacted by the restrictions, especially the Beijing restrictions, just like what I mentioned. But however, the room nights sold and bus tickets, our volume drivers, still record growth versus 2019 in this very challenging environment, benefiting from local and short-haul travel in lower-tier cities and towns. Thanks to our investment and business development in lower-tier cities all over the country. That is why we still lead the travel market in this difficult time.
As mentioned in the prepared remarks, we are forecasting the revenue to be nearly flat year-over-year compared with 2020 or over 90% recovery compared with 2019 or pre-COVID level. Meanwhile, as usual, we probably reduce some of the marketing investments as the demand has been suppressed. But lastly, as a kind reminder, quarter four is usually a flat season for travel and a major season for marketing investments for spring festival preparation in travel industry. That is why our net margin in quarter four may be relatively lower than the rest of the year.
Next, in terms of the outlook for next year, 2022, we believe every time when stricter travel restrictions are implemented during this hard time that implies a better opening or even more vigorous rebound later when the restrictions are loosened and the pent-up demand is released. We also deeply felt that the life was very energetic and dynamic in the cities and towns that was less affected by the COVID in the past few months. Our management team visited a lot of and studied a lot of low-tier cities and towns in August and September, and the confidence on local and leisure travel opportunities was stronger than ever. Thus, we are still very confident on the overall market and our performance in 2022.
First, specifically the hypergrowth of accommodations and bus tickets, the significant revenue contributions from flights and trains, and additional revenue sources from new business and product lines after our organization restructuring. Nowadays, the management team focus on the tasks of, for example, we focus on proactively understand the behavior change of the travelers to aggressively capture those opportunities in our target market and target users. Also, we are proactively lead industry upgrade and revolutions. For example, promoting online penetration to give users more convenience during travel, the supply chain digitalization to improve the overall operation efficiency of the industry. We believe we'll become stronger in the competitive landscapes next year. For the bottom line or the margin next year, we will persist on flexible and lean management in this environment.
On one hand, focusing on the ROI for every penny of our marketing investment and on the other, keeping improving our operation efficiencies. Meanwhile, we will utilize the savings from efficiency improvement to enrich our product portfolio for better monetization in the long run. We'll also be devoted to the sustainable development of the company so as to create more value on the whole society. That is my comment on the next year's situation. In terms of the bus ticket business performance, Joyce, please.
Okay. Thank you, Brian, for your questions. You know, the offline acquisition continue to be very important for our MPU growth. During the third quarter, we have consistently pushed ahead with our offline acquisition initiatives and explore more offline scenarios, as I mentioned before. In the last quarter, around 11% of our MPU was contributed by the offline user acquisition, with the majority was contributed by the bus ticketing business. The investment per user of bus vending machine was very limited. Well, still we can see now that currently, the around 25% of the bus ticketing users acquired from vending machines, they repurchase within three months. We have also started to cross-sell other travel products to our bus ticketing users so as to enhance the monetization capability since the second quarter of 2021.
The cross-sell rate improved as we optimized the booking and transaction flows to better present products and services. At this stage, we will remain focused on growing our user base while leveraging our capability in data analysis and innovation to develop suitable products for these users and dig out more value for this business. Thank you.
Great. Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Poon from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
Thank you, management, for taking my question. Congrats on the very strong cost control and user metrics despite the COVID-19 impact. My first question is regarding our short-haul business, staycation, the bucket of revenue that is less impacted by COVID that is still driving growth. Can management share how much of the GMV is contributed by short-haul travel in overall speaking? And how should we think about this? How much of this business is growing versus 2019? This is my first question. Second question is, recently there has been discussion about Hong Kong and China reopening, and can management share your view on how we can benefit from the reopening? Thank you.
Thank you, Alex. First is your question concerning the local travel and staycation. I think we can see that the percentage of room night sold during the weekend in quarter three, which is also representative of the users' habits to the choice for the local travel staycation, they have increased by 5% percentage points when compared with the same period in 2019. I mentioned that in quarter three, we have further enriched our innovative marketing campaign called Forty-Eight Hours, which is also targeting for the young users to better serve their emerging needs for the short-haul travel post-COVID. We also joined hands with several tourism bureaus to help revitalize the travel market by introducing the innovative products and promoting local tour resources.
Moreover, recently we have completed an organizational structure to better capture the emerging opportunities. Under the new structure, the accommodation and local consumption business group was set up to better serve users' emerging needs surrounding the short-haul travel and local consumption. I think in the future, we will continue to strengthen this business group by launching the innovative product services as well as seeking better synergy of hotel and local consuming business, to capture the opportunities driven by the upsurge of the local travel and staycation.
Yeah. For the second question is about the international business after the borders reopen. We believe actually the international business accounted for, I think, around 5% of our revenue before COVID. When the international border reopens, we will also be benefited as we have already established relationship with various international suppliers. What is more, we are different. During the past two years, we have already provided excellent products and services for nearly 200 million paying users in a year, of which 40% of the users were totally new to our platform. Back to, I think, 2019, we have only over 100 million paying users in a year. Nowadays, the user amount has been doubling.
We believe as the borders reopen and the consumption power continues to enhance, we could also fulfill the additional needs of traveling around the world by those younger generations. That is why we firmly believe that the whole travel market is eager for travelers, especially for the younger generation, younger Chinese users. The company has a very large user base, as I just mentioned, which also help us to restart our international business. We will also make effort to prepare for the reopening of the international travel next year. Thank you, Alex.
Thank you. Our next question comes from D.S. Kim from J.P. Morgan. Please ask your question.
Hi, everyone. Good evening and congrats on very respectable print again. My first question is related to our agreement with Tencent a couple months ago. Could you help us understand how we account the total fee in our P&L? I mean, do we still amortize the upfront payment in our sales and marketing? And if that's the case, can I check if we have already paid for the 3-year full access, and how much of that is booked in 3Q?
Actually, that is a financial thing. The Tencent total fee is amortized in our sales and marketing line. Actually, we will pay Tencent year by year, but not last time we paid Tencent for the five years in one time. This time, we will pay Tencent one year by one year. Financially, we book the spending as an amortization in the sales and marketing line.
Got it. Thank you. Can I just double-check, have you already paid in third quarter? During third quarter?
No, we didn't. We still have not paid the money in the third quarter, but we have already booked the spending month by month in the amortization, sales marketing dollar amortization line.
Thank you.
The cash will flow out in this quarter.
Got it. If I'm not mistaken, we renewed end of July or beginning of August, so that means we have booked about two months worth of amortization already, right?
Correct.
Okay. I treat that as one question. I have one quick follow-up. In terms of our accommodation business, which is extremely strong, may I check how big are our low-tier city contribution in terms of total room nights and booking revenue? You know, I know you may not discuss our market share, but just roughly, it was just so impressive to see our volumes growing 40+% in low-tier city. Just roughly, do we have a sense on how much market share we have in the low-tier city today versus, say, pre-COVID 2019? I just want to get the momentum if I can. Thank you, and that's all from me. Thank you.
Okay, first, I will share some colors on the contributions for the low-tier cities room nights. I think back to 2019, the low-tier cities means non-tier one, non-tier two cities contribute like 40%-45% of the total room nights in 2019. Nowadays, it has already contribute like 60% of the total room nights in this year. In terms of the GMV, of course, the GMV contribution is less than the room nights contribution. It's just around 50% because the ADR is relatively lower in the low-tier cities.
For the market share, actually, we don't have the exact number of the industry because, you know, we don't have the total room night amount for the whole industry. But we believe we have a lot of a market share gains, especially from the offlines. Because I think I remember last year or before COVID, we mentioned that the total online penetration for low-tier cities is around 20%, but nowadays, we believe the online penetration will be at 25%-30%. So that 5%-10% market share is captured by Tongcheng Travel and other players, online players.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please ask your question.
Hi, good evening. Thanks, management, for taking my questions. I have a question regarding our take rate trend in accommodation and transportation. Given that we have launched a lot of innovative products and value-added service offerings in the accommodation segment, despite we are seeing uncertainties on COVID or macro uncertainties in 2022, how should we think about our take rate trend as we try to monetize from the customers?
Very quick follow-up is about the accommodation. You speak about the pricing trend. How should we think about the pricing trend in top and lower tier cities? My second question is about our annual paying users. Given that we have done so well, already reached close to 200 million paying users, just want to get some color about how we think about trend trajectory or a few years later about our total annual paying users. Thank you.
Yes. Actually, Thomas, we are very happy to see that the take rate for the blended take rate for the accommodation segment for our company continually improved since 2020, benefiting from two things. One, most of the players, the online players are very disciplined to invest on the couponing. Two, our VAS revenue contribution increased time to time, quarter-to-quarter and year-on-year. For quarter three, I think our VAS accommodation VAS has already contributed like 11% of our total revenue for the accommodations. We believe this trend will continue in several quarters on the followings. I just wanna share more colors on how what kind of things we provide on the accommodation one-stop-shop strategy.
We have been developing different, a lot of different kinds of VAS products and service to fulfill the users' long tail needs. For example, users are getting more aware of the safety and the hygiene during the pandemic. We offered some new VAS such as insurance and disposal supplies, and these new products and services are well received by our users. On the other hand, when hotels are suffered by the pandemic, hotels are very eager to enhance their opportunities to monetize. We worked with hotels to explore revenue stream from in-store consumption such as dining, spa and other hotel facilities. This new initiative to make more revenue contributions for our accommodation business and enable us to enjoy higher take rates.
We believe this kind of VAS are long-term needs for users and hotels as well, and we believe our blended take rate will be improved in 2022 and in the long run. For the annual paying user things, I think Joyce may give you more comments.
Thank you, Thomas. I think till the end of September, our rolling 12-month APU had already reached 196 million. Actually, till the end of October, this number had further increased, benefiting from our offline acquisition of the bus ticketing business. You know, given the volatile market situation, I think it's already not an easy task for us. Going to the next year, even in the shadow of the COVID, we're still very confident in the continued hypergrowth on user volume, but we haven't set an exact number for target right now. I think we have already accumulated sufficient user base from our business, and we will continue to explore new growth potentials from the new business.
Even though we have successfully penetrated the bus ticketing market and become the leader in the online market, we still take very small portion of the total market share because this market was too fragmented as digitalization brings us to still in a very early stage. With our investment in enhancing the bus ticketing business and implementing the operational and management system for the bus operators, we think it will still pay us back hundreds of millions new users from mass market and the low-tier cities in the following years. We will also aggressively strengthen our capability for the hotel PMS and digitalization of tourist attractions, on one hand, to improve the operational efficiency and digitalization for the business partners and the whole industry.
On the other hand, still we can acquire more users in multi scenarios, similar to what we have done, in the bus ticketing business. At the same time, I think next year we will focus on acquiring new users, but at the same time, we also will pay more emphasis on the user value growth on our platform. Thank you.
Thank you. Our final question tonight comes from Ronald Keung from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you all, Joyce, Julian, and team. I have two questions. Firstly, given the resurgence in cases kind of back and forth recently, and in the December quarter guidance kind of similar trends to third quarter, which is roughly flat revenue change on a year-on-year basis, you did give some of your color and expectations into 2022, but as you said that if you're expecting strict measures implemented for most at least the earlier part of the year, should we expect that trend that we saw in third, fourth quarter may be the trend into first quarter, say into second quarter next year? Just wanna see when are we expecting the hypergrowth to return. Particularly before the cases had resurged. Second question is on can you share some of the ADR trends?
I think I calculated should it be roughly down around 10%-15% on year-on-year basis versus 2019, and some cross-selling rates, if you have, some of those numbers, and how that have improved. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Ronald. In terms of the 2022, I think I have already shared some colors in the question that Brian asked. But actually in this quarter four, because of the strict restrictions, actually, the performance is not very satisfactory. Just like what we mentioned, it will be a flat year-over-year and 5%-10% drop from 2019. From the company view, actually, we think this kind of strict restriction will be continued, I think, in the Spring Festival because of the government's preparations for the Olympic Winter Games. We think the restriction especially to and from Beijing will be continued in late February or early March.
After that, after spring, from the international perspective, a lot of country has already reopened for international travel. We believe China will also step by step to take the same execution for the border reopen, maybe start from the second quarter next year, or I think lately in the summer vacation. We are very confident that the demand will be released, will be totally released after, I think, not March or April next year.
We still hope for a hypergrowth next year, hope for a hypergrowth domestically and also hope for the restart of the international traveling next year. That is why we nowadays feel very confident on a hypergrowth compared with this year for 2020. That is the first question. The second question is some kind of number things. ADR still dropped, I think 25%-30% compared with 2019 and in quarter four. ADR dropped compared with 2020.
Even compared with 2020, ADRs dropped, still dropped because we have mentioned a lot of times, the October and November is very bad for the comprehensive, for the total traveling industry, especially for the traveling and also for the hotel industry as well. The ADR is, it's dropped year-on-year and also dropped compared with 2019. The cross-sell for the company, actually for quarter four is quite stable, just around 10%-11%, also because the quarter four, because of the travel restrictions. The leisure travel and also the business travel requirement is blocked to some extent. That is why our cross-sell don't have a, a...
It's not improved quarter-over-quarter from quarter three to quarter four. We believe as the restrictions will be loosened next year and also the international traveling started, our cross-sell will be set a record high next year. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference back to Ms. Kylie Yeung for closing remarks.
Thank you. We're closing the call now. If you wish to check our presentation and other financial information, please visit the IR section of our website. Thank you and see you next quarter.