Agoda CEO Sees China Bookings Reaching Pre-Pandemic Marks by 2024

Capital A Berhad, parent of Malaysian budget airline AirAsia, expects to see the carrier’s operations returning to pre-pandemic levels by December, Capital A CEO Tony Fernandes told Reuters on Monday.

International travelers spent $18 billion on travel to, and within the U.S. in July., down by $1.5 billion from its pre-pandemic level, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office’s latest data. Spending on strictly goods and services like recreation, lodging and food totaled $9.7 billion in July 2023.

Hotel occupancy and room rates have bounced back to pre-pandemic numbers, primarily due to the soaring demand for the G20 Summitto be held in New Delhi on September 9 to 10. 

Jongyoon Kim, the CEO of South Korea-based superapp Yanolja, sees Tesla as the metaphor for its company highlighting how the electronic vehicle company has been rethinking the entire value chain.

Accor, the Paris-based hotel giant, said on Tuesday that Omer Acar will head its brands Raffles & Orient Express as of March 1. Acar will join Accor’s other brand CEOs in its luxury and lifestyle group (Fairmont, Sofitel & MGallery, and Ennismore) — all of whom report directly to group CEO Sébastian Bazin.

Ireland’s overseas inbound tourism level for the year is set to hit 75 percent of 2019 levels, CEO of Tourism Ireland Niall Gibbons told The Sunday Times (London).

Not all hotels should pursue remote workers, a hotel group CEO has suggested, because they mostly served their purpose during the pandemic.

U.S. hotels added 10,000 jobs in December, a decrease from the previous month amid the hotel industry’s ongoing inability to approach pre-Covid employment levels.

Both the Middle East and Europe are on track to reach their pre-pandemic levels in 2023 , according to the UN World Tourism Organization. Last year saw a stronger than expected recovery for the global tourism economy.

Having witnessed a stronger than expected recovery in 2022, the Middle East could see international tourist arrivals return to pre-pandemic levels this year, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). Data from the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer noted that while all regions enjoyed significant increase in international arrivals in 2022 over the previous year, the Middle East recorded the strongest relative increase as international tourist numbers climbed to 83 percent of pre-pandemic numbers last year. “The region welcomed large events such as Expo 2020 Dubai and the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, as well as a highly attended Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia,” noted UNWTO in its report.  “UNWTO anticipates a strong year for the sector even in the face of diverse challenges including the economic situation and continued geopolitical uncertainty,” Secretary General Zurab Pololikashvili said. UNWTO noted that over 900 million tourists travelled internationally in 2022, which was double the number of those who travelled in 2021 though still 37 percent below 2019.

While the tech sector faces the blues, the travel sector is still moving in a positive direction. You can see this in the last month of earnings reports, as well as from exclusive Skift Research surveys. Although not fully recovered completely, the travel industry gained substantial momentum at the start of the year. All regions have almost recovered from the pandemic blues, Asia Pacific being the only exception. But with loosening travel restrictions and China reopening, we expect a stronger travel industry to be less uneven this year.

Spanish travel booking company eDreams ODIGEO said on Thursday its net loss in the October-December period narrowed to 10.1 million euros ($10.7 million) as it added more subscribers and the number of bookings continued to rise.