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Jenny Southan, editor, founder and CEO of Globetrender, says: “Our number-one trend for the year ahead is ‘China Boom’. After three years of closure during the pandemic, the country is finally dropping its ‘zero Covid’ restrictions and opening its borders to international travel. This promises to be very positive for the global tourism economy – in 2019, spending from Chinese travellers amounted to US$255 billion – more than any other nation. (In second place was spending from the US, which totalled US$132 billion.)
At the moment, a number of countries are imposing Anti-Viral Arrival protocols on Chinese travellers but we hope this will be short-lived.”
She continues: “In spite of the fact that a third of countries around the world will be in recession in 2023, or will be experiencing economic conditions that feel like recession (according to the International Monetary Fund), average earners will be doing everything they can to get at least one holiday in the year ahead. Travel is something few people want to sacrifice anymore. Among high-earners, there will be defiant spending on lavish hotels, eye-popping experiences and round-the-world adventures.”
Southan also highlights how the concept of the “nuclear family” is becoming outmoded, and that hospitality providers need to become more fluent in catering to 21st-century “Modern Family Travel”. (According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2019 there were 212,000 same-sex families in the UK, an increase of 40% since 2015. In 2021, one in six adoptions in the UK were made by same-sex couples, compared to one in 22 in 2011.)
