Skift Megatrends is arguably our largest companywide exercise every year, and we’ve been making our research-driven and editorially informed prognostications for a decade now.
07.08.2023 - 10:31 / nationalgeographic.com
The Northern Chinese named meat-filled dumplings 'hun dun', after historic Hun invaders, so they could symbolically consume their enemy. There are regional differences in wontons served throughout China but the most familiar is perhaps the Cantonese version, served with soup and often noodles.
The skins should be thin and near-translucent. To do this, rest the dough several times during the kneading process so the gluten can relax, making it more pliable. Dust your surface and dough with cornstarch instead of flour, as extra flour will make the skins tough.
The traditional Cantonese filling of pork and prawn should be tight and springy. To achieve this, the pork should be hand diced rather than minced, and use a fatty cut, such as pork belly. The meat then needs to be mixed sufficiently — I use a mixer, adding dry seasonings first and oil last. It should become sticky to the touch.
There are many ways to shape, such as folding the wrapper diagonally into a triangle, then crossing the two bottom corners; or folding diagonally and pleating to seal. Expel any air by pinching the wrapper as close to the filling as possible, giving the final pleat a tight squeeze, so the filling almost stretches the skin.
Cook in gently boiling water. As the skins are so thin, too rapid a boil can cause them to overcook before the filling is done. If cooking frozen wontons, bring to the boil, then add an espresso cup’s worth of cold water to the pan. Repeat this step twice more.
Cantonese wontons are served in a soup made with pork bones. This takes time, so chicken stock with white pepper, soy sauce and sesame oil is an alternative. If you’re time stretched, swap soup for a dressing of vinegar and chilli oil. A garnish of chopped spring onions is essential.
Amy Poon is co-owner of Poon's sauces and Poon's Wontoneria.
Skift Megatrends is arguably our largest companywide exercise every year, and we’ve been making our research-driven and editorially informed prognostications for a decade now.
An end to China’s travel curbs this month is expected to revive demand in the global luxury retail market, which has been starved of mainland visitors for three years, but many consumers now see more reasons to do their high-end shopping locally.
India is making a PCR Covid test mandatory for inbound arrivals from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea, from January 1.
U.S. and European airlines will benefit from pent-up demand for travel to China after its recent border reopening, but route approvals, fresh Covid-19 testing rules and not enough large aircraft remain barriers to rising sales, analysts and industry officials say.
Four major online travel companies had around $34 billion in cash and equivalents on the books at the end of 2022 — and that’s considerably more liquid dinero than they had at the end of pre-Covid 2019.
On Wednesday, we published a deep dive into Chinese outbound tourism by Asia Editor Peden Doma Bhutia. The spark of the story came from a discussion she had in December with Trip.com Chief Operating Officer Schubert Lou at Skift Global Forum East. “The article is an attempt to cut the clutter and talk about how the Chinese tourist has changed and how destinations should approach this change,” Bhutia told me this week. “Also, call it perfect timing, the deep dive came out the day China removed its final Covid-induced hurdle for travel and resumed issuing tourist visas.”
Take it easy, seems to be the mantra for Indian travelers as they plan their summer getaway for the upcoming holiday season. Shedding light on summer travel trends, online travel company MakeMyTrip observed that the average number of room nights per booking for the ongoing April-June quarter has increased for both domestic and outbound holiday packages, hinting at the fact that travelers prefer relaxed itineraries. “The average nights booked for outbound packages for the summer quarter is 27 percent higher than last year’s corresponding period, and almost 85 percent higher than the pre-pandemic average,” said Rajesh Magow, co-founder and Group CEO of MakeMyTrip. In domestic packages, too, MakeMyTrip observed a 54 percent increase in average room nights booked this year over the corresponding period in 2019. “The preference for relaxed itineraries has positively impacted average per-passenger spend. Travellers are seeking experience-led travel, resulting in more bookings with pre-booked activities,” Magow said. And even asinternational airfares from India have shot up, with some sectors witnessing an increase of over 50 percent compared to last year, Indian travelers are still considering summer travel. And then of course, there are the visa delays. MakeMyTrip notes that although Indians are interested in traveling to Europe, the top five destinations preferred by them are short-haul international locations — Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Maldives, and the United Arab Emirates. On the domestic travel front, Goa, Kochi, Srinagar, Dehradun and Leh are the most sought-after destinations for MakeMyTrip users. “India’s rainbow offering of diverse cultures and landscapes, offering varied destinations to travellers, is coming to the fore in our booking mix,” said Magow. MakeMyTrip has also been witnessing strong traction for pilgrimage destinations such as Puri, Varanasi, Rishikesh, and Vrindavan. A trend that Oyo had also noted last year based on its booking data
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In a new Skift Research report, entitled Understanding the Chinese Traveler Post-Covid: Survey Findings and Trends, we explore various stages of the Chinese travel journey, decode their spending habits, and offer key takeaways for Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) and travel suppliers.
U.S. planemaker Boeing slightly raised its annual 20-year forecast for new jetliner deliveries, propelled by the strength of the narrowbody market fueled by demand from low-cost carriers.
Trips for tourism in China during last week’s three-day Dragon Boat Festival climbed 32.3 percent from a year earlier to an estimated 106 million, 12.8 percent above the pre-pandemic level in 2019, the ministry of culture and tourism said.
U.S. destination marketing organizations plan to ramp up their marketing activities in China later this year. How much depends on progress the two governments make on restoring air service to pre-pandemic levels.