Ji Qi is what is called a serial entrepreneur.

After a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree at Jia Tong University in Shanghai, Ji tries his hand at entrepreneurship for the first time. The early 1990s in China was very different from the environment we now know, filled with young graduates walking in the footsteps of Jack Ma. His style and character seemed eccentric at a time when it was thought that the only way to succeed was to join a foreign company.

Despite these prejudices, Ji pursued his dreams.

In studying robotics, he realized the potential impact of technology on businesses. And he saw an opportunity. In 1997, he headed the high-tech group Shanghai Sunflower, which he founded himself. Only two years later, with the help of three other associates, he co-founded Ctrip China’s first travel booking site. The company entered Nasdaq in 2003 and its market capitalization is still close to $ 18 billion. Ji Qi will serve as CEO until 2001. He still sits on the board of directors as an independent director. The same year, he had a chance meeting with a salesman of the AccorHotels group with whom he sympathized and who advised him a book written by the two founders of the company. This book was a revelation for him to embark on the hotel business.

20 years later, he meets the two founders on an equal footing.

He thought at the time that the model that made Ctrip successful (capital-based financing and the use of software to disrupt a sector dominated by a state monopoly) can be successfully applied in the hotel industry. He co-founded Home Inns & Hotels Management Inc., China’s largest economy hotel chain. He will be General Manager until 2005. His character and style of mangement was a problem and he found himself evicted from his own company. The businessman saw it badly but said he was saved by classical music and in particular Mozart. This experience taught him the importance of hiring day-to-day managers, tasks he does not like to do.

Ji could have stopped there.

However, despite considerable success and wealth, he is calling on old friends with strong management and technology skills and is investing in a new channel, Hanting. To meet domestic demand and the growing travel sector, it is positioned on budget and mid-range hotels. Ji develops software to manage room management and pricing. The success of its concept stems in large part from the integration of the culture of the tech companies in the hotel sector. But not only. Indeed, where the global giants of hospitality (Hilton, Intercontinental) have taken more than a century to reach this scale, Huazhu has done it in two decades. This is explained by the super growth of China at this time (1.4bn in travel in 2006 against 5.5bn in 2018) and the development of the road network, resulting in a boom of «motels» and hotels at reduced prices. The Hanting brand has since been joined by several companies forming the Huazhu Group (formerly known as the China Lodging Group), which is listed on the Nasdaq in 2010. Huazhu has been partnering with AccorHotels since 2014. It becomes the exclusive franchisee of the brand in China , in Taiwan and Mongoli. AccordHotels holds 10.8% of the group. Huazhu holds 4.5% of AccorHotels and 23.8% of luxury and high-end in China. Huazhu is currently less profitable than its foreign counterparts because of rapid and recurring investments. The group partnered with Ascott to create a joint venture offering 16,000 Citadines-branded accommodations in 2025.

Despite all these successes, the businessman remains humble and very lucid about his strengths and weaknesses.

Since his experience with Home Inns, he prefers to focus on strategy, vision and leave to others daily management. Ji Qi loves the French countryside, where he spends all his summers and has recently invested in the vineyard Maison Le Star, with Guillaume Brochard and Patrick Thomas (former boss of Hermes).