From Jing Travel: “Against the backdrop of falling Chinese tourist numbers and increasingly hostile bilateral sentiment, Brand USA and San Diego Tourism Authority are taking matters into their own hands. Brand USA, the organization dedicated to trumpeting the virtues of an American vacation to a global audience, made its intensions clear in late August by announcing mega pop star Jane Zhang would front its China-facing “Feel the USA” campaign. Its latest partnership involves San Diego Tourism Authority (SDTA), Alipay, China’s foremost digital payment platform, and Fliggy, Alibaba’s online travel agent platform.” For the complete article, click here.
It Seems Certain that 2019 Inbound Traffic to USA Will Decline vs. 2018
Latest NTTO Figures not Encouraging: The collapse of the UK-based tour operator Thomas Cook on September 23, 2019 generated scores of side stories about the legacy of the company, and it also helped to put the finishing touch on an already cloudy picture for the inbound tourism industry’s outlook for 2019. Here are some of the data-driven reasons why:
—The outlook was already less-than-bright early last month when the U.S. Travel Association’s Travel Trends Index told us that international inbound travel had contracted once again in July, falling by 1.2 percent. That decline followed a disappointing June performance which saw the sector’s six-month trend fall below zero for the first time since September 2015. Also, the Leading Travel Index (LTI), the predictive component of the TTI, projected that international inbound travel growth will remain negative over the next six months (-0.4 percent).
—This was before the shutdown of Thomas Cook, which regularly sent more than 50,000 visitors a year to the United States, according to its entry in the profiles of international tour operators that delegates to US Travel’s IPW trade show. Meanwhile, Mabrian Technologies, a travel Intelligence company, said its study of the data showed that Thomas Cook had more than 330,000 seats set aside for travel to the United States from Sept. 1, 2019 through Aug. 21, 2020. How many of those seats will be replaced with seats on other carriers?
—The latest arrivals numbers posted late last week by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) show that overseas arrivals to the U.S. increased by only 0.8 percent for the month of August (vs. the same month in 2018) and was up 1.8 percent, year-to-date, for 2019 vs. the same period in 2018. And these data did not take into consideration, of course, the demise of Thomas Cook.
—Finally, while the 1.8 percent increase so far this year may seem encouraging, the industry is also facing the prospect of a second consecutive year of decline from China. And year-to-date arrivals totals from the key markets of South Korea and Brazil are down. German arrivals are up by less than one percent.
China Market Notes
Reflecting its Growing International Profile, Ctrip Changes its Name to Trip.com Group Limited. Already the largest OTA in China and one of the largest in the world, Ctrip, which turns 20 years old next month, is changing its name to Trip.com Group Limited. Said James Liang, the company’s executive chairman: “The new name reflects the services and products we provide, and can be easily remembered by global users. In October, we will celebrate the 20th Anniversary. Over the next decade, we will strive to become one of the most innovative and respected companies in the global travel industry.”
Package Travel Sales Increase: Of interest to those in the group travel sector—midst some powerful, record-breaking financial results for the second quarter of 2019 that accompanied its name change announcement—was a note that packaged-tour revenue for the second quarter of 2019 was $153 million, representing a 25 percent increase from the same period in 2018, primarily driven by significant traffic from offline stores and high demand of customized tours. Packaged-tour revenue for the second quarter of 2019 remained consistent with that for the previous quarter.
New research has determined that one-third (16.3 percent) of respondents chose an adventure trip for their last holiday. The 2019 study found that 2.7 percent of departures could be categorized as “hard adventure,” while 13.6 percent pursued “soft adventure” experiences. The China Adventure Tourism Market Study—it came from Bannikin Travel and Tourism, a travel consultancy based in Toronto and Hong Kong that conducted the study—surveyed more than 300 Chinese travelers over the age of 18 who had taken a trip in the past year. “This report delves deep into who Chinese adventure travelers are—their planning habits, income, spending habits and dream destinations,” said Natasha Martin, managing director of Bannikin Asia. “We’ve never had better insight into how to market toward the Asian travel market and break into one of the largest tourism spends out there.”
The survey was sent with the objective of discovering how many Chinese travelers actively seek out adventure while on vacation. Here are some of the report’s main findings:
—The total adventure market size for China (based on accommodation spending only) is $8.2 billion per year.
—Adventure travel spend from China represents 0.64 percent of total international tourism spend.
—The top destinations for adventure travelers were United States, Thailand, Australia and Japan.
—Time in nature, camping and backpacking are some of the most popular activities for Chinese adventure tourists.
—72 percent of Chinese adventure travelers spend between 4-10 days abroad, lower than Western adventure travelers.
Expecting outbound to grow to half its business, Ctrip is focusing on recruiting and attracting talent outside China. Reports ChinaTravelNews, Ctrip, which is the largest travel group in China—and which recently chose to change its name—”is bullish about serving the high-end group of travelers, its outbound business and also the contribution from its international business.” In an interview with ChinaTravelNews, Jane Sun, Ctrip’s CEO, indicated that the overall revenue generated from the group’s international business is expected to reach 50 percent in the next 5 to 10 years.
“Our hotel and flight ticket sales for cross-border travel activities maintained fast growth during the quarter, more than doubling the growth of China’s outbound trips,” said Sun, adding, “we are confident that outbound as well as foreign-to-foreign international tickets will be the future drivers of our business.”
She said that in order to grow its international business, recruiting proficient local talent in each market is also going to be the key going forward and that “…we need to recruit talent at local level. So, we are putting concerted efforts to identify and recruit and train our team in each market so that we can build a strong team, understand our customers and build our product offerings that are suitable for the local customers and move methodically into each region,” she noted. “Mainly, the people will make the business penetrate further into each region.”
WeChat Weekly Rankings for the week of Sept. 2-8: A product of Dragon Trail Interactive and Dingla, these ratings give us a one-week snapshot as to what is working among users of the world’s largest social media and mobile payment app, with over a billion monthly users.
NTOs:
No. 1: Japan National Tourism Organization: Ginza Tokyo shopping guide.
No. 2: Austrian National Tourist Office: Vienna has been named 2019’s best city in the world to live in.
No. 3: Tourism Australia: Cute animals to see in Australia.
DMOs:
No. 1: Dubai Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing: Dubai travel guide for senior travelers.
No. 2: Macao Government Tourism Office: Awesome places to watch the Macao International Fireworks Display 2019.
No. 3: South Australian Tourism Commission: Amazing unknown places to discover in South Australia.
Airlines:
N.1 AirAsia: Member offers
N.2 All Nippon Airways: Lucky bags
N.3 Cebu Pacific: September offers
Attractions & Museums
No. 1: V&A Museum: Blanc de Chine, a continuous conversation.
No. 2: The Museum of Modern Art, New York: Exhibition history of MoMA.
No. 3: Louvre Museum, Paris: Emperor Kangxi and the Sun King Louis XIV.
Hotels
No. 1: Marriott Bonvoy: Marriott Hotels & Resorts launches ‘M Passport’ program.
No. 2 Hilton: 100th Anniversary | Exclusive member discount.
No. 3 Wyndham Hotel Group: Clean water project with the One Foundation.
About the data: The data is jointly collected and compiled by Dragon Trail Interactive and Dingla, a B2B travel marketing platform assisting foreign organizations build long term travel trade relationships in China.
About the Ranking:
Ranking criteria: Accounts are ranked according to the highest number of views per total number of posts published. WeChat views are “unique views”.
No. overseas National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) surveyed: 52
No. overseas regional and city Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) surveyed: 74
No. overseas airlines surveyed: 48
No. overseas cruise lines surveyed: 17
No. overseas attractions & museums surveyed: 27
No. overseas hotels surveyed: 46
For more information, contact communications@dragontrail.com
Boston to Keep Moving up in Place as Port of Entry to U.S. for International Air Passengers
Maybe it has something to do with Pat Moscaritolo, who headed up the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau before stepping down from his job earlier this year after 28 years at the helm. Before that he was director of Boston’s Logan International Airport for a decade or so and, during his time there, he created a marketing department to focus on developing new nonstop international routes from Europe to Boston. From out of nowhere, Boston ranks No. 13 on the Top Ports of Entry in the USA according to preliminary data released last month by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel and Tourism Office.
And now, airlines analyst John Grant tells us in a recent OAG blog, the outlook is even brighter for Boston. This year, he writes “some 48 airlines will operate scheduled services to Boston compared to 39 in 2015 with new entrants such as Norwegian, Frontier, Hawaiian, Korean and Air Maroc all seeing opportunities. And with both JetBlue and Delta Air Lines publicly stating an intent to grow in the next couple of years what more can we expect?”
For the complete blog post by John Grant, click here.
Just Send the Bill to Grandad and Grandma—UK Report Finds Many of Them Paying for the Holiday
More and more, those multigenerational holidays—those that include mom and dad, the kids and the grandparents—are being paid for by the grandparents.
Going a little deeper in the research on the subject, this is what Travelzoo found out some interesting facts in a research project on the subject among 1,700 UK travelers. The key findings from the report on the subject include the following:
—More than 40 percent of those booking the holiday were grandparents.
—One-third (34 percent) of the respondents indicated that the grandparents also paid for the whole family.
—Only 13 percent of the parents, meanwhile paid for everyone.
—More than a quarter gave “exploring new places” as the favorite multi-generational activity.
—About the same number (26 percent) of respondents indicated that eating together was their favorite activity.
—Another report by over by the senior travel specialist Saga revealed that over-50s account for 58 percent of the total travel and tourism spend in the UK, while spending from younger generations has reduced.
—Some 48 percent of grandparents said that, in hindsight, they would have liked to have gone on a multi-generational holiday with their own parents and children
—Thirty-seven percent of respondents said that they are booking another multi-generational holiday next year.
Said Travelzoo’s UK general manager James Clarke: “It’s interesting to see that it is the grandparents who are pushing for the multi-generational holidays, both in a financial and emotional sense. As our lives become busier and it becomes more difficult for families to spend quality together, big family holidays across the generations become more and more important.”
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