Sino-US trade frictions did not affect the variation of China’s tourist arrivals from the US, which grew 7.4% in 2018, 4.6 percentage points higher than that in 2017.
Visitor arrivals to China increased by 4.7% to 108.76 million and outbound trips from China rose 8.5% to 119.9 million.
Early entry was but the first step of Booking.com’s game plan on building its presence in China, and partnering with major local players is deemed essential.
The WeChat Alliance initiative comprises four programs: Destination Service Digitalization, Industry Growth Workshop, Industry Growth Fund and Alliance Summit.
Kayak users will be able to book Trip.com's car-rental offerings in Asia Pacific including Greater China, Singapore, Korea and other destinations.
Asian destinations captured 54% share of the total Chinese outbound tourists spending, while America and Europe claimed 24% and 13% respectively.
The company claimed that it is "China’s largest online intelligent tour guide provider with a 86.2% market share" in gross merchandise value in 2018, citing data from a Frost & Sullivan Report.
Passenger number was growing slower than flight capacity in the first five months of 2019 between the world’s two largest economies.
