As oil prices continue to diminish and US dollar is keeping strong, international travellers are finding a value for their money with Asian tourist destinations. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimated international tourists to increase by 43 million people every year, eventually reaching a mind-boggling 1.8 billion by 2030. Emerging economy destinations are predicted to grow at an average rate of 4.4 percent where Asia stands to profit the most. The analysis speculates that the tourism in the region will outgrow average growth in the rest of the world, with an overwhelming number of 535 million visitors by 2030.

The magnitude of this opportunity certainly isn’t escaping companies that provide unique travel experiences. Meanwhile, KKday, a Taiwanese travel start-up, announced that it has raised US$4.5 million in series A funding to assist acceleration in its Asia-focused expansion. The round is led by AppWorks Ventures with participation by 91Capital.

KKday is a site that connects travellers with local tour operators. According to a company statement, since its launch in early 2015, KKday has provided 5,000 unique travel experiences and generated revenues of US$914,000* in January 2016 alone. The start-up focuses on destinations in Asia, with activities featuring in Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Taipei majorly but also provides  in places like Paris, New York, and Cappadocia. The startup has branch offices in Hong Kong and mainland China, with plans to open up offices in Singapore, South Korea, and Japan by April. It also expresses its keen interest in Macau and Malaysia as important growth markets.

Jamie Lin, founding partner of AppWorks Ventures, in a truncated statement said;

“More travellers [are] embracing independent travel. KKday’s services are customer-oriented, satisfying travellers’ expectations of customizing their own trip,”

Asian travellers are an important outbound market with Chinese travellers alone estimated to have spent US$129 billion in 2013. KKday recognized that vacation packages provided by traditional travel agencies did not suffice increasing expectations for unique, personalized, and bespoke tour experiences and tried to bridge the gap. Since they’ve got a new set of funds to expand its operations across Asian domain, probably we’ll see them grow in the tourism sector with greater potential.

Source: TechinAsia

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Madrid played host to the 15th annual WTTC Global Summit this year gathering together leaders from the Travel & Tourism businesses around the world.  Trends and insights for the industry were shared by the experts and hot topics were debated upon. Here we list down 6 key takeaways from the event.

David Scowsill, President & CEO, WTTC

(Image by WTTC/CC-BY 2.0)

1. Travel and Tourism will grow faster than global economy

In 2014, the travel industry contributed $7.6 trillion in revenues which was 9.8% of the world’s GDP. According to WTTC, the GDP from this sector will continue to grow at around 3.8% and by 2025, its share in world economy will grow up to 10.5%.

2. Travel & Tourism sector would account for one in eleven jobs

The sector provides employment to a large number of people around the globe and number of jobs will continue to grow. It would provide 284 million jobs by the end of 2015 which would be 9.5% or one in eleven of all jobs around the globe.

3. US and China will retain the top spot

WTTC predicts that China and US will continue to hold their rankings as the two biggest Travel & Tourism economies on the planet over the next 10 years. India, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Peru and Kenya are expected to experience strong growth.

4. Talent shortage could be a barrier

Research by Oxford Economics for WTTC indicates that private and government sectors need to act immediately to deal with the talent shortage in industry. If that doesn’t happen, the projected number of 347 million jobs by 2024 could fall short by 14 million. The contribution to global GDP could be $610 billion less than the projected $11 trillion by 2024.

5. Volume of international travellers will grow

UNWTO reports suggest that by the year 2030, there will be 1.8 billion international travellers. The growth rate would average around 3.3% or 43 million new international travellers every year. The year 2014 saw over 1.1 billion travellers crossing national borders which was up by 51 million from 2013.

6. World’s aircraft fleet will double and Asia Pacific will lead air travel

With the increase in percentage of urban population and their disposable income, the demand for airline seats will go up. The state of aviation industry will improve considerably and it will support around 105 million jobs by 2035. Aircraft manufacturers predict that the passenger and cargo fleet will grow to 42,180 from 20,910 over this time period. 20 years from now, Asia-Pacific will lead the air travel scene followed by Europe.

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