Travel in China

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, November 3. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Each year in the Alps, as the first snows of the season start to fall, mountain towns welcome winter visitors with a slew of smart new hotels. And this year is no different, with upscale brands including COMO Hotels and Resorts moving its beach-beautiful ethos to the Italian Alps in COMO Alpina Dolomites, and Grace Hotels giving St Moritz its first luxury opening in half a century in the Grace La Margna. With its boutique modern addition, the sleek Swiss hotel breathes new life into the former art nouveau hotel La Margna, following a trend for high-profile revamps seen across the Alps this season. Here’s a look at the six best new openings, many of which revitalise former hotel landmarks.

Five Republican senators led by Marco Rubio on Friday asked President Joe Biden’s administration to ban travel between the United States and China after a spike in Chinese respiratory illness cases.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, December 1. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Sponsored by

Trip.com Group said Thursday that it has selected Amazon Web Services as its “strategic cloud provider” in a multiyear deal meant to drive innovations in travel bookings, personalized recommendations, and customer service. 

The construction firm behind the MGM Cotai casino resort in Macau has been awarded the contract to build “The Island” in Dubai. First reported by MEED, the $1.2 billion contract is the most valuable construction deal in Dubai in the past six years.

Northern California’s historic Gold Country is booming—for the second time. This string of former mining towns in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada burst onto the scene in 1848 during the fabled gold rush.

Demand for U.S. visas from Indian travelers are at record highs. But 500-day wait times or longer continue to hinder travel to the U.S.  

In 1973 Jack and Dolores Cakebread were visiting friends in Napa Valley and mentioned they would be interested in buying their land if they ever wished to sell — to their surprise the friends called back later that day and agreed to a deal. Cakebread Cellars is now celebrating fifty years and have released their ‘ 50th Anniversary Chardonnay Collection ,’ made up of four single-estate wines made from the first varietal bottled by the winery. I spoke with co-owner Bruce Cakebread, son of Jack and Dolores, about his parents, the history of the winery and his favorite vintages.

Donghu Ecological Park, located in capital city Wuhan of central China’s Hubei Province, has received 21.39 million tourists, ranking the country’s 6th 5A level scenic attractions during the October holiday season, with income of 5.7 billion yuan RMB (about 800 million US dollars), according to the park management committee. Known as the “City of wetlands”, Wuhan is home to 165 rivers, 166 lakes and about 162,000 hectares of wetlands, accounting for 18.9% of the city’s total land coverage. Donghu (“East Lake”) showcased the city’s efforts in ecological civilization construction over the past decades.

With the Macau Grand Prix celebrating its 70th anniversary with an extended two-weekend schedule, Sands China Ltd. supported the world-famous competition with a special Grand Prix community outing; a series of Grand Prix themed activities, installations and workshops at The Venetian® Macao and at the historic Iec Long Firecracker Factory, which Sands China is revitalising; and concerts on each of the two Grand Prix weekends to promote the integrated development of sports, culture and tourism.

Abu Dhabi’s bar scene, while slightly more subdued than neighboring Dubai, is certainly lively, and people in the UAE capital know how to have fun. From chic brasseries to pubs full of personality, here are the best bars in Abu Dhabi as chosen by our editors.

Born and raised in Hebei—the province that, on the map, appears to wrap two arms around Beijing in a loving hug—restaurateur Amy Li moved to the Chinese capital some 26 years ago to live and work. In the time since, she and husband Jonathan Ansfield have run several food businesses (the latest, Vietnamese restaurant Susu, was conceived after a friend observed a dearth of such cuisine in the city.) Li loves Beijing's multifaceted nature, citing both the “powerful sense of order” wrought by such landmarks as the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Wall as well as the messy chaos of Old Beijing's hutong—here, she lays out what you can't miss of the old as well as the new on a visit.

Wait times for first-time visitor visas in Colombia, Mexico and India stretching to hundreds of days will continue to be a headache for the U.S. travel industry. 

Accor has announced the signing of the first Tribe Nation hotel in China, in partnership with Guiyang Chengnan Investment and Development Company Ltd.

Travel searches by Indian travelers for Thailand have spiked. Online travel agency Agoda’s search data for the peak December travel period shows recent visa policy changes have impacted travel preferences and top destination choices for Indian travelers.   

According to online travel agency Trip.com, China is broadening its unilateral visa-free policy for ordinary passport holders from six nations—France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia—in an effort to bolster the recovery of the East Asian giant’s tourism sector industry. For now, the program is being implemented on a trial basis, with plans to keep it in effect from December 1, 2023, to November 30, 2024.

If you’re going to organize a three-year round-the-world cruise, a good first step is probably to acquire a ship.

After the 20-minute sail across southeast Lombok's Awang Bay, stepping onto the honey-hued sands of Innit feels like arriving at a private island retreat. It's easy to be fooled into thinking you're all alone here: Mammoth boulders and steep cliffs border the shore on one side, and a string of undeveloped coves stretches out from the other. Wedged in between, Innit's seven beach houses are the only signs of life. Designed by celebrated Indonesian architects Gregorius Yolodi and Andra Matin, who took cues from Lombok's stilted lumbung barns, they all feature two terrazzo-floor bedrooms surrounded by glass walls and vertical slats made from local timber. Down at the breezy restaurant, Indonesian classics such as deconstructed gado gado with tempeh cubes and cabbage roll-ups are served with endearing fine-dining pizzazz. Innit can also organize paddleboard tours, surf lessons, and spear-fishing expeditions, followed by a bonfire on the beach, where the catch is grilled.

…

ATM and the Emirates tourism stand out this month. The IMEX conference also attracts great interest from the sector.