Ctrip Corporate Travel reports on latest market trends
>> China, the world's largest business travel market, registered a declined growth rate of 5.9% last year, while the average annual growth rate in 2013-2018 was 11%, according to data from Trip.com Group's business travel unit Ctrip Corporate Travel. OTAs are still major booking platform for domestic business travel, with a penetration rate of 70.1%. TMCs are popular in China’s first-tier cities, while a mix of OTAs, airlines/hotel direct channels and traditional travel agencies dominate the lower-tier markets.
JD.com buys 7.4% stake in tour operator Caissa
>> China’s e-commerce company JD.com’s subsidiary agreed to subscribe to 73 million newly issued shares of travel service provider Caissa for about RMB 450 million (USD 63.5 million). The investment will allow JD.com to hold a 7.37% stake in Caissa.
TUI China kicks off curated short-haul holidays
>> TUI China has identified tourist sites close to Beijing and Shanghai with focus on domestic trips like self-drive tours. Guido Brettschneider, CEO at TUI China, said the company is offering shorter stays in locations with great outdoor options and space. TUI China hopes for return of inbound and outbound business in the second half of 2020 and 2021.
Fosun Tourism's Q1 sales drop 15.9%
>> Leisure travel and resort company Fosun Tourism said its total business volume in tourism operations declined 15.9% to RMB 4,089 million (USD 578 million) in the first quarter this year. Sales volume of resort operation in the first two months of 2020 grew 8% year-on-year despite the COVID-19 outbreak since late January.
Shiji grows operating revenue by 18.24% last year
>> Shiji Information announced that the company registered an 18.24% rise in operating revenue to RMB 3,663 million last year. Profit dropped 18.70% to RMB 494 million. In 2019, Shiji bought the 100% stake in Touchpeak Software for RMB 36.9 million, acquired the 100% shares of ICE PORTAL for RMB 93.8 million, and took full control of Quick.Check for RMB 233 million.
Airbnb booking data from China offers glimpse of a rebound
>> Airbnb's number of domestic bookings in China for the first half of April were up more than 200% compared with the same period in March, according to data from third-party analytics firm AirDNA. Bookings for the week of April 13 in 10 big Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Guangzhou, were up nearly 80% from the week of March 16, which AirDNA CEO Scott Shatford said was the bottom for that market.
IHG's China business improves steadily
>> IHG said it expects Q1 Global RevPAR to decrease 25%, including a 55% decline in March. Business in Greater China continues to improve steadily, with only 12 out of 470 hotels now closed. Occupancy levels in comparable open hotels are currently in the low to mid 20% range across the business.
Thousands of hotels in China have closed since COVID-19
>> Some 74.29% of the Chinese hotels and inns have ceased operation during the time, according to data from the China Hospitality Association. The accommodation industry which includes hotels and homestay businesses loss more than USD 9.5 billion) in the first two months this year. Only 66,000 hotel-related new companies were registered in the first quarter, the lowest number in the past five years, down by 38% from the first quarter of 2019.
China's hotel RevPAR drops 77.6% in March
>> Asia Pacific's hotel industry reported all-time lows in RevPAR, occupancy and ADR during March 2020, according to data from STR. Occupancy in China declined 65.4% to 23.2% in the month, ADR was RMB 332.41, and RevPAR plummeted 77.6% to RMB 76.96. China’s hotel occupancy level was up from February (12.8%), which was the lowest occupancy month on record in the country. Key markets Beijing and Shanghai reported decreases in the metric of 78.7% and 73.7%, respectively.
Big Three Chinese airlines lose $2B as virus kills travel
>> The big three state-run Chinese airlines reported a slump in earnings in the first quarter as the coronavirus upended travel demand, but there are signs the worst of the crisis is over for them. China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines lost RMB 5.3 billion (USD 750 million) and RMB 3.9 billion, respectively. Air China posted a loss of RMB 4.8 billion. The country’s aviation market is off its lows thanks to a pickup in domestic flights as people returned to work, the recovery has a long way to go as there’s little demand for leisure trips and international traffic has screeched to a halt.
China expects post-pandemic travel surge as Japan hunkers down
>> As many Japanese laments their loss of travel plans over the upcoming Golden Week holidays from late April to early May, more than 80 million Chinese are expected to enjoy the Labor Day holiday, their first vacation since the coronavirus lockdowns. Trip.com Group expects to see twice as many travelers during the five-day holiday compared with the 43 million recorded during the Qingming tomb-sweeping festival earlier this month.
China, South Korea to revive business travel
>> South Korea says it has agreed with China to start facilitating some business travel between the two Asian neighbors, in Beijing’s first formal bilateral program to ease border controls since the virus outbreak. Starting May 1, South Korean business personnel can travel to seven provinces and three major cities in China — Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing — after passing through health-screening and quarantine procedures.
Hong Kong's daily visitor arrivals below 100 in early April
>> The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) has reported the provisional number of visitor arrivals to Hong Kong in March 2020 was 82,000, a drop of nearly 99% when compared to the same month last year. At the beginning of April, normally a very busy time for Hong Kong, the average number of daily visitor arrivals dropped to below 100.
China's domestic business travel slowly picking up
>> Business travel slowly is recovering in China under tight government control and mostly at a domestic level. The country's strategy to restart the biggest business travel market in the world could offer a glimpse of how business travel will recover in the future, despite clear differences in how the market operates. "Every day there is a limit to 4,000 passengers coming into China. This is a 97% drop compared to pre-COVID levels," said BCD Travel Greater China managing director Jonathan Kao. In addition, visa restrictions have been put in place by China or other countries, making foreign entry very difficult
