Embarking on 2024: Trip.com Group reveals top travel trends
30.12.2023 - 18:23
/ breakingtravelnews.com
As the sun sets on 2023, Trip.com Group, a global leader in online travel services, reflects on the dynamic landscape of travel over the past year, offering insights into the trends set to shape the journey in 2024.
China’s border reopening sparks global travel surge
With the opening of China’s borders, travel was greatly boosted by a wave of Chinese travellers with a pent-up demand for overseas travel. Trip.com data unveils a significant rise in outbound travel bookings, showcasing a six-fold increase compared to 2022. This trend is especially prominent during holiday periods, such as the 8-day Golden Week in October which witnessed an eightfold surge in outbound travel. This is a compelling prelude to a robust New Year Holiday season from 31 Dec 2023 to 3 Jan 2024, which recorded a 240% increase in bookings year-on-year from 2022.
The data also revealed that Chinese travellers have a strong interest in visiting Southeast Asia, with many of these countries topping the list of preferred outbound destinations in 2023:
Top 5 destinations for Chinese travellers in 2023
Thailand
Japan
South Korea
Singapore
Malaysia
The thriving interest in outbound travel is expected to persist in 2024. Besides outbound travel, China’s inbound travel is also showing steady signs of recovery. In 2023, Trip.com saw four-digit growth in visitor numbers as compared with the same period in 2022 – surpassing 60% of pre-pandemic levels.
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According to Trip.com data, China’s top source markets for inbound tourism include South Korea, Japan, Singapore, the United States, Australia, Malaysia, Canada, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Germany. These visitors’ preferred destinations in China are Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Zhuhai, Hangzhou, Foshan, Xiamen, Zhongshan, and Chengdu. In fact, seven out of ten hotel bookings made by overseas tourists are for Shenzhen.
Furthermore, Trip.com’s “China Travel Guide”, a comprehensive guide that provides inbound visitors to China with hotel, transport, payment and other travel-related information, has served nearly 100,000 overseas visitors since its launch in September.
We also partnered with e-payment service providers such as Alipay to simplify payment for overseas visitors, helping international tourists navigate their travels in China.
AI takes centre stage in predictive planning for 2024
As we venture in 2024, the travel landscape is undergoing a paradigm shift, driven by the widespread integration of AI. Leading this transformative change is TripGenie, an advanced AI travel assistant that is integrated into the Trip.com mobile app.
Leveraging cutting-edge large language model technologies, TripGenie, launched in 2023, has evolved into a personalised travel