"A challenging year" is how Trip.com Group has described its 2020, as the China-based travel giant reported annual revenues of $2.8 billion - down 49% on 2019.

The company says the fourth quarter of 2020, when revenues were down 40% compared to the corresponding period in 2019, reflected a narrowing of the declines from a pandemic-hit year as domestic travel continued its "strong recovery."

The domestic travel business contributed to "substantially all of its total revenue" in the fourth quarter at $761 million, with the group's CEO Jane Sun claiming it is prepared to take on additional share of the market when international travel returns in the coming months.

Trip.com Group's hardest hit segment in 2020 was package travel, with a 73% drop in revenue to $40 million, when compared to 2019.

In comparison, accommodation revenues fell by 47% to $1.1 billion for the full year and its corporate travel business declined by 30% to $135 million.

Elsewhere across the group, transportation ticket revenues slumped 49% to $1.1 billion.

The two main sources of revenue, accommodation and transportation, each account for 39% of the total revenue pot.

Trip.com Group says it spent 53% ($675 million) less on sales and marketing during 2020.

Chairman James Liang says despite the challenges of 2020 the company has emerged "fundamentally stronger than ever before."

He adds: "We continued to innovate our products, improve service offerings, and strengthen our collaborations with partners, which led to further market share gains across our product lines.

"In the near term, we will focus on the domestic market in terms of supply chain, product innovation, content capabilities, quality and technology; while at the same time, we remain ambitious with a global vision to drive our sustainable growth post pandemic."