Travel News Selection – July 2017

Singapore Airlines’ budget subsidiary, Scoot, has launched two new long-haul destinations – Honolulu, Scoot’s maiden US destination, and Harbin in north-east China, following its first long-haul flight to Athens, Greece, launched this month. Earlier in April, it was also announced that Norwegian UK, a budget airline, will be flying long-haul from Singapore to London. These budget carriers’ move to long-haul destinations hints of a possibility for more carriers to connect Southeast Asian travellers to Europe, bringing a new clientele base there. Read More

Digital home rental platform Airbnb is causing greater disruption in the luxury travel and hospitality space with an addition of a high-end tier. Tentatively named Airbnb Lux, the new tier will be a hub for users looking for luxury home rentals such as mansions and penthouses. The high-end classification will be one of many new tiers from Airbnb that will help users search easier for what type of accommodation they would like to book. Read More

The sixth edition of Hotels.com’s annual Chinese International Travel Monitor identifies a disconnect between what hoteliers are doing for their Chinese travellers and what the travellers actually want. According to this report, Chinese travellers want, in order: free wifi, a Chinese breakfast, a kettle in the room, Mandarin-speaking staff and for the hotel’s printed materials to be also available in Mandarin. But more could be done by hotels to attract these Chinese travellers.
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London bookings for the period between July and October are 14 per cent ahead of where they were at the beginning of July last year, with the increase led by markets in the Americas (+21 per cent) and Asia-Pacific (+14 per cent), according to ForwardKeys. While terrorism is a huge deterrent to travel, it is evident that costs issues might outweigh the impacts of safety and threat. Read More

In a bid to boost tourism, French prime minister Edouard Philippe on Wednesday said the country will cut visa delivery time to 48 hours for citizens of Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia, India and Russia, according to a Reuters report. The French government also said it would assign more staff to airport passport checks to limit waiting time to 30 minutes for EU citizens and 45 minutes for non-EU citizens. Read More

The Chinese Travel Research team recently published a trend report on Chinese outbound travel to Europe for Semester 1 of 2017. Tourist departures to Europe saw a 65% increase compared to 2016 figures. The report also found that Chinese consumers are demanding more in-depth travel itineraries in Europe. ‘Rushing’ itineraries are no longer popular, instead consumers want to immerse in the cultures and stay in a city/country for a longer period of time. Read More