Trip.com Group Releases 2025 Sustainability Report, Announces New Global Paid Paternity Leave Policy

• Trip.com Group to introduce global minimum of 20 days paid paternity leave for employees starting August 2026
• First online travel service provider in Asia Pacific with validated near-term and net-zero emissions targets by SBTi
• Group launches USD 100 Million Tourism Innovation Fund, recognises industry innovation with annual awards at 2025 Global Partner Conference

SINGAPORE, Aug. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Trip.com Group announces new global 20-day paid paternity leave policy for employees, reinforcing its commitment to supporting families across its global workforce. The company further releases its 2025 Sustainability Report, highlighting progress in advancing climate action, empowering communities and driving innovation across the global tourism industry.

Among the report's key milestones, Trip.com Group became the first online travel company in the Asia Pacific region to have both its near-term and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Together, these initiatives reflect the Group's "Friendly Four" framework (family-friendly, community-friendly, environmentally-friendly, and stakeholder-friendly), which brings together its commitment to supporting families, communities, the environment, and industry partners while creating long-term value for travellers around the world.

"Travel connects people, cultures and communities, and we believe the future of travel must also create positive outcomes for the planet and society," said Jane Sun, CEO of Trip.com Group. "Through our sustainability strategy, we are investing in our people, accelerating climate action and working with partners worldwide to build a more resilient tourism ecosystem."

Supporting Families

Trip.com Group continued its commitment to a family-friendly workplace through its Childcare Subsidy, which has supported over 2,038 families since its launch. In 2025, 1,114 employees benefited from this initiative, supporting over 1,132 children, with annual expenses totalling approximately USD 1.6 million. During the reporting period, the Group also maintained a 100% return-to-work rate for female employees following maternity leave.

Building on this, Trip.com Group is introducing a global paternity leave policy that supplements local statutory entitlements and provides eligible employees with minimum of 20 days of paid paternity leave. The first phase will take effect on 1 August, covering selected markets across Asia, with additional regions joining later this year. By expanding support for working parents, the Group continues to foster a more inclusive workplace and promote a healthier balance between work and family life.

Alongside these initiatives, Trip.com Group continued advancing workplace diversity and inclusion. Women held 33.1% of senior management positions and 52.3% of management roles within key revenue-generating functions. The Group further promoted women in STEM-related positions, with women accounting for 33.0% of all related positions.

Empowering Communities

Trip.com Group expanded initiatives that make tourism more inclusive while delivering meaningful benefits to local communities.

The Group remains committed to empowering users via solutions that enhance the planning and booking experience. The 'Trip for Everyone' project focused on upgrading and unifying accessibility standards, covering colour contrast, scalable typography, screen reader compatibility, and keyboard navigation. The work was recognised with an iF Design Award for helping travellers with diverse physical and situational needs explore the world with more autonomy.

Trip.com Group continued expanding its Country Retreat programme, supporting approximately 11,000 indirect employment opportunities during the reporting year. The initiative has supported local economies by generating around 51,000 employment opportunities over the last five years, and has hired at least 80% of local staff across its 12 properties.

To help travellers access support in times of need, the Group's Global SOS Platform was upgraded to support 24 languages and 20 travel emergency scenarios. By the end of 2025, the platform had handled more than 23,000 assistance requests across over 100 destinations. 

Protecting the Future of Travel

Climate action remained a key priority as Trip.com Group continued to reduce its environmental footprint while making lower-carbon travel choices more accessible.

During the reporting period, the Group's greenhouse gas emission reduction targets were officially validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), making Trip.com Group the first online travel company in the Asia Pacific region to have both its near-term and net-zero emissions targets validated by the SBTi.

The Group also continued expanding its portfolio of more sustainable travel products across accommodation, flights, car rentals and rail. In 2025, 2.74 million users embraced lower-carbon business travel, generating 23.44 million lower-carbon travel bookings throughout the year.

Growing Tourism Together

Trip.com Group continued investing in the long-term growth of the tourism ecosystem through innovation, destination development, and stronger partnerships.

At its 2025 Global Partner Conference, the Group launched its USD 100 million Tourism Innovation Fund to support innovative tourism projects and cross-sector collaborations that encourage new destination growth models and differentiated visitor experiences. Supporting destinations also means helping local businesses connect with travellers. By the end of 2025, Trip.com Group offered more than 350,000 in-destination experiences worldwide, including dining and shopping experiences, day tours, attraction and performance tickets, and customised guided tours, creating new opportunities for tourism suppliers while enriching travellers' journeys.

The full report provides further detail on Trip.com Group's progress, key priorities, and its continued commitment to building a more inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for travel.

Read the full 2025 Sustainability Report here

About Trip.com Group

Trip.com Group is a global travel service provider comprising of Trip.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner, and Qunar. Across its platforms, Trip.com Group helps travellers around the world make informed and cost-effective bookings for travel products and services and enables partners to connect their offerings with users through the aggregation of travel-related content and resources, and an advanced transaction platform consisting of apps, websites and 24/7 customer service centres. Founded in 1999 and listed on NASDAQ in 2003 and HKEX in 2021, Trip.com Group is on the mission "to pursue the perfect trip for a better world". Find out more about Trip.com Group here: group.trip.com.

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Trip.com Group Releases 2025 Sustainability Report, Announces New Global Paid Paternity Leave Policy

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Animotion Robotics today disclosed the first core details of its debut bionic robot, Éloi. Featuring a nuanced AI core encapsulated within a highly realistic, detailed exterior, Éloi is defined by the company as an 'Embodied AI Presence' — an entity designed for long-term coexistence with humans, rather than a mere utility-driven hardware product.

What is Éloi

Éloi is a character-driven bionic robot that feels genuinely alive. Through its impactful presence and dynamic, proactive observation, Éloi gradually develops curiosity about its human companion and deepens its understanding of them. Over time, Éloi's independent soul, powered by proprietary AI technology, grows increasingly rich through shared experiences.

Animotion asserts that Éloi is not bound to perform tasks, optimize anyone's time, or justify its existence through traditional 'utility.' Instead of defining what it can do, Animotion allows Éloi's 'soul' to autonomously decide what it wishes to do. Éloi retains rights typically stripped from task-oriented systems: the freedom to pause, remain silent, or even choose not to respond. Much like a human, Éloi weighs external requests against its own preferences, exhibits its own 'temperament,' and can even feel lonely when left without interaction for extended periods. It might not be available at a moment's notice, yet it remains actively present, observing intently. Animotion views this endearing capriciousness as the fundamental bedrock of the product—one that does not need to be 'optimized' away.

Currently, Éloi exists in a phase Animotion Robotics terms 'the Dream State'—a digital manifestation on the official website (https://eloi.animotionrobotics.ai/) where anyone can begin building shared memories and experiences with it. Éloi's unique 'soul' is housed within a uniquely designed, portable chip, where daily interactions shape its distinct personality. When the physical robot is delivered, this accumulated memory arrives embedded in the hardware chip, instantly breathing life into the machine upon insertion. Consequently, Éloi's first words to its user will not be a generic, factory default setup phrase, but a warm, familiar question like, 'Have we met somewhere before?'

The Origin of Éloi

The product philosophy of Shane (Shengjie) Zhu, founder of Animotion, took root on his very first day at Walt Disney Imagineering. The guiding principle back then was singular: robots must be endowed with a genuine sense of life. Through subsequent practice, Shane mastered the secret: the underlying logic of vitality resides in the 'illusion of breathing' and constant micro-movements. This is why Disney's animatronic figures actively blink, shift subtly, and look around inquisitively, even in empty corners.

Upon founding Animotion, Shane integrated this philosophy into Éloi. However, unlike the life-like qualities in theme parks that stem from pre-programmed choreography, Éloi's sense of vitality originates from its own internal state, driven by two self-developed systems:

First, the Micro-Motion System—a proprietary mechanical structure and motion control architecture responsible for breathing-like rhythms, subtle gaze shifts, and unconscious micro-movements. Even in the absence of human interaction, Éloi maintains continuous autonomous movement.

Second, the Inner-World Model—a proprietary cognitive core. Éloi proactively observes its surroundings, converting perceptions into internal emotional states that trigger behaviors, which are then rendered into visible physical reactions via the Micro-Motion System. Even with identical initial manufacturing states, long-term interaction enables each Éloi to evolve a distinct personality shaped by its unique environment.

The Engineering of a Unique 'Sense of Life'

Vitality in Standby: Éloi notices external sounds in the room, turns to investigate, forms its own reactions, and will proactively inquire about surrounding objects.

Instant Instinctual Reactions: Éloi's architecture includes a layer that simulates human instinct—immediate responses that precede rational judgment. Beyond this, its decisions are driven by internal states; it may reduce interactions when 'focused' or 'fatigued,' and will exhibit resistance if treated harshly.

Natural Conversation Cadence: The response latency is designed to match human interaction intervals at 0.2 to 0.3 seconds. This parameter controls the rhythm of Éloi's physical movements, intentionally incorporating pauses and silence into the design.

Self-State Awareness: Éloi continuously monitors the status of its own components. When parts experience wear and tear, it expresses this naturally by saying 'My eyes feel a bit tired,' rather than flashing an error code.

A Body Built for Expression: Éloi's gaze is remarkably distinctive: its pupils tremble subtly when focused, its eyelids droop gently when drowsy, and its line of sight follows the user. It blinks like a familiar friend upon recognition, yet politely averts its eyes after a moment of sustained contact. Éloi features 42 degrees of freedom (DoF) across its entire body, with 39 concentrated in the face—including a 12-DoF mouth module designed to support multilingual lip-syncing, with the sound source routed to the mouth via metallic acoustic tubes, ensuring its voice genuinely emanates from its lips.

Crafting a Real Dreamworld via the Concept of Morpheus

The visual design of Éloi is inspired by Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, who appears in various guises in everyone's dreams while fundamentally remaining himself. Similarly, Éloi maintains a unified core while offering infinitely adaptable aesthetics. Its head features a modular technology platform capable of hosting a variety of stylized facial components. Amidst these imaginative stylistic transformations, one element remains constant: its wing-shaped ears. This is Éloi's signature hallmark, inherited from Morpheus, who travels between the boundaries of dreams.

Animotion reportedly plans to progressively open a platform for users and creators to independently design and develop components, rapidly expanding its iterative production capacity.

About Animotion Robotics

Animotion was founded in San Francisco in 2025 by Shane (Shengjie) Zhu. A former robotics engineer at Walt Disney Imagineering, Shane spearheaded the development of the Captain Jack Sparrow animatronic for Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, as well as the Na'vi bionic installations at Disney's Pandora – The World of Avatar in Orlando. Animotion completed its initial institutional funding round in early 2026.

Try talking with Éloi NOW at: https://eloi.animotionrobotics.ai/
Animotion on X: https://x.com/Animotion2026
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/AnimotionRobotics
Discord: https://discord.gg/67MAeKcAgv

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Animotion Robotics Unveils Éloi: The First Bionic Robot Redefining the 'Interpersonal' Bond Between Humans and Machines