Asia-Pacific travel industry eyes growth

Travel professionals see continued growth opportunities for the Asia-Pacific travel industry over the next two to three years, with China remaining a key market for both inbound and outbound travel, according to an industry report.

On Thursday, global travel company Expedia Group released new research titled Mapping the Future of Asia-Pacific Travel, based on a survey of 1,250 travel professionals from Australia, China, India, Japan, and Thailand.

The report highlights strong growth potential across the Asia-Pacific region, alongside growing complexity driven by evolving traveler expectations and technology transforming the booking journey.

It shows that 41 percent of travel professionals from China expect demand for their travel business to grow over the next two to three years. Chinese travel professionals report the strongest expectations for growth in luxury leisure travel, with 48 percent expecting demand in this segment to increase.

Across Asia-Pacific, more than one in four travel professionals see China as one of the biggest growth-opportunity markets for both outbound and inbound travel over the next two to three years.

As demand rises, traveler expectations are becoming more complex and localized. Among Chinese travel professionals, the factors that have grown most important for travelers over the past two to three years are in-language and localized experiences, flexible change and cancellation options, and sustainable travel options.

Meanwhile, 59 percent of the subjects note that AI-powered tools and nontraditional booking platforms have grown in importance, underscoring an accelerating shift toward more dynamic and technology-enabled travel planning.

Many travel businesses continue to face structural challenges. Respondents see a lack of localized content as a major constraint and highlight that it's difficult to gain visibility across search and AI-driven platforms.

While AI adoption is accelerating, 79 percent of respondents are already using the technology and 97 percent are planning to do so in the future, indicating that many organizations are still working to unlock its full potential.

Aileen Chan, vice-president of sales, Asia-Pacific, Expedia Group said that Asia-Pacific is one of the fastest-growing but most complex travel markets in the world. For Chinese travel businesses, the opportunity is not only to capture demand, but to meet travelers with the right localized content, flexible options, payment choices, and technology support across markets.