Trip.com CEO Tells Davos China Travel Will Rebound This Year

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.

Ankit Gupta, the India CEO of hospitality technology platform Oyo, and Mandar Vaidya, the head of Oyo’s European operations, will both be moving on from the company.

Six casino companies have agreed to invest a total of $15 billion in Macau over ten years, with more than 90 percent of the money pledged to non-gaming activities.

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

Even though China’s recent relaxation of Covid measures is widely seen as a step forward for travel, Trip.com is still cautious in the very near term as winter is usually a slack season for both business and leisure travel.

India is making a PCR Covid test mandatory for inbound arrivals from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea, from January 1.

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.

American comedian and actor Kevin Hart is a man on a mission as he is looking to hire an ambassador for Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island. Hart, who was appointed Yas Island’s first-ever chief island officer in May, announced the job opening on social media on Monday, calling it the “world’s best job.” The salary being offered for the two-month role is $100,000. Anyone aged 21 years or above can apply for the job, the last date for receiving entries is January 23. “No CV, previous experience or cover letter needed, just your video up to 60 seconds (videos over 60 seconds will be disqualified),” the website mentioned. Once hired, the ambassador will take part in a variety of tourism activities for Yas Island while being put up at the W Abu Dhabi for 60 days. Yas Island has also made all the video applications public in its website.

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.

Dubai received 14.36 million international overnight visitors in 2022, growing 97 percent year-on-year from the 7.28 million tourist arrivals in 2021, according to the latest data published by Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism. In 2019, the city had welcomed a record 16.73 million international overnight visitors. The strong performance in 2022 features some noteworthy spikes in Dubai’s traditional key markets and strong growth across emerging markets. Dubai remained a first-choice safe travel destination for visitors from the city’s stronghold markets. Western Europe and Gulf regions each accounted for a 21 percent share of arrivals. The Gulf region in particular saw an exponential increase in their share of arrivals from 13 percent in 2021 to 21 percent last year. South Asia contributed 17 percent of total volumes while the Middle East and North Africa region contributed 12 percent, further reinforcing Dubai’s continued appeal to travelers from proximity markets. The Americas accounted for seven percent of arrivals while North Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa each contributed five percent and Australasia accounted for two percent.

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.