The Emergence of a New Chinese Traveler: A Skift Deep Dive

Marriott International announced 13 deal signings in Turkey comprising over 2,000 rooms.

A shift towards experiential journeys, growing demand for premium travel options – Indians approach to travel is evolving, according to Mukul Sukhani, senior vice president of business development at Mastercard.

Marketers beware: Prior ways of marketing to Chinese consumers, including travelers, won’t work as well today because their preferences changed during the pandemic.

China’s latest loosening of its stringent zero-Covid policy, mostly for domestic tourism, comes across as too little too late, at a time when the rest of the world is living with the virus. 

Etihad Airways looks forward to welcoming over 1.5 million travellers at Abu Dhabi International Airport between November 21 and January 8. Abu Dhabi kicked off a calendar of events with The Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix held between November 17 and 20 last week. Football fans from around the world will also be flocking to the region as the FIFA World Cup started in Doha from Sunday. “Etihad with its partners, is geared up and ready to host 1.5 million expected guests over the next six weeks,” said Shaeb Al Najjar, general manager of hub operations at Etihad Airways.

A job opening for a hotel wanting an “organic chef” or someone who can handle “procurement and environmental, social, and corporate governance,” underlines the importance of sustainability as a value proposition helping them with talent acquisition and retention.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, December 16, and we are headed back from a successful Skift Forum in Dubai. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Chinese travelers cite financial constraints over the last three years as the leading reason for not wanting to travel abroad even as China decided to end its zero-Covid policy by easing travel restrictions, according to a report.

India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country later this year, as China begins to decline and India’s population growth shows no sign of slowing until 2064. That shift carries huge implications for travel across the globe, and has the potential to rewire the race for attracting global tourists around the world. Skift addressed this in its Megatrends 2023 package in the story India Becoming the New China in the Reordering of Asia Travel.

India is expected to overtake Germany to become the world’s third most powerful travel and tourism market by 2032, according to World Travel and Tourism Council’s Economic Impact Research.

While airlines not running international flights at the pre-pandemic level could be a short-term bottleneck, Chinese online travel agency Trip.com Group believes the country’s outbound travel will start to pick up in the second quarter when flight capacity gradually recovers.

Despite a sluggish international travel market, the pace of recovery in the Middle East aviation market accelerated throughout 2022 and is expected to take off over the next 10 years with the region’s share of the global fleet set to expand. In its “Global Fleet and MRO Market Forecast 2023-2033,” global management consulting firm Oliver Wyman noted that the Middle East remains among the fastest-growing aviation markets in the world, with the regional fleet set to expand 5.1 percent annually over the next decade. The report further noted that the Middle East’s share of global fleet will grow over the decade from 4.9 percent in 2023 to 6 percent in 2033.  Meanwhile, the global fleet is projected to expand one-third by 2033, to well over 36,000 aircraft, with Oliver Wyman also anticipating a record number of aircraft deliveries over the next 10 years (despite current supply chain constraints). The Middle East fleet’s growth over the next decade will primarily be driven by the addition of narrow bodies. Historically, the Middle Eastern fleet has been primarily made up of widebodies. But moving forward, the report observed that narrow bodies will increase to 48 percent of the fleet from 39 percent, while wide bodies will decline to 48 percent from 56 percent.