Turkish Airlines has finalized a deal with Boeing for up to 150 737 MAX aircraft, comprising 100 firm 737-8s and options for 50 more, with substitution rights for the larger 737-10. It is the flag carrier's largest-ever Boeing narrowbody order and the first major fleet decision under new Chairman Murat Seker and CEO Ahmet Olmustur. No delivery timeline was disclosed.
The European Commission launched the Surging Women's Employment Initiative under the Pact for the Mediterranean, mobilising €25 million (including a €10 million EU contribution) to create 500,000 additional jobs for women in the Middle East and North Africa and raise women's employment by 5% by 2030. Women's labour market participation in the region has remained at around 20% on average for over two decades. Unveiled by Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica with UN Women during the 81st UN General Assembly High-Level Week, the initiative focuses on skills, entrepreneurship and job creation in sectors including care, green, science and technology.
Meadin Research released its 2026 Autumn Travel Insight Report, finding that autumn travel started earlier, lasted longer and reached farther, driven by extended-holiday arrangements and new autumn school breaks in several regions. Tongcheng data showed searches for Mid-Autumn and National Day keywords rose 278% month-on-month as of September 14, while Qunar reported a 119% month-on-month surge in flight-and-hotel bookings. Bookings for domestic long-haul flights over 1,200 km rose 34% year-on-year, and hotel stays of five nights or more increased about 7 percentage points. The report divides September to November into five autumn phases and identifies three trends: a shift toward expectati…
Thailand is targeting 1.5 million U.S. visitors in 2026 to draw higher-spending long-haul travelers and drive tourism revenue. U.S. arrivals reached 1.08 million last year; from January 1 to September 15 this year only 716,983 were recorded, per the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), meaning more than 780,000 additional American visitors are needed in the remaining three and a half months. TAT said its New York, Chicago and Los Angeles offices will coordinate around a "Value over Volume" strategy set at a September 17 meeting in New York. Bangkok-based tour operator EXO Travel reports softer forward U.S. demand.
Trip.Biz, Trip.com Group's business-travel arm, unveiled its Agent ONE AI suite at the Transform 2026 summit in Singapore, comprising planning, booking, approval and insight agents, claiming it cuts average booking time from about 45 minutes to 2 minutes and approval waits from over an hour to under 3 seconds. Meanwhile, a Phocuswright report shows India's travel market grew just 1% to $41.7 billion in 2025, with a 13% rebound to $47.2 billion expected in 2026. Cloudbeds and Klook launched a two-way distribution integration, and WTTC, JATA and Tourism EXPO Japan signed an MOU.
Accor is not pursuing a single Asia strategy but several market-specific expansion models. In China, the hotel giant is leaning on H World to help double its footprint to 1,600 hotels. In India, it is looking for new partners. In Vietnam, major developers are driving an unexpected surge in signings. Across the region, conversions and franchising are increasingly helping Accor tap into existing hotel supply. Duncan O'Rourke, Accor's CEO for Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, said China, India and Vietnam are very big for the company, but the development models to capture those opportunities are markedly different.
American Airlines and Starlux Airlines announced a codeshare partnership. American will place its code on Starlux-operated flights to Taipei Taoyuan International Airport from Los Angeles, Ontario (Calif.), San Francisco and Seattle-Tacoma, and plans to place its code on Starlux-operated Phoenix-Taipei flights pending regulatory approval. AAdvantage members can earn miles and points when booking an American codeshare operated by Starlux. Starlux passengers from Taipei can connect to 20 North American cities on American-operated flights on a single ticket with baggage checked through to final destinations. Flights are now available for booking for travel beginning Sept. 30.
According to Skift, Barry Diller's People Inc. has withdrawn its proposal to acquire MGM Resorts International, a potential deal valued at roughly $18 billion. People Inc., formerly known as IAC, holds a 27% stake in MGM and had been preparing a bid to buy the remaining shares. Diller, People's chairman and senior executive, commented on the withdrawal. The news concerns Las Vegas casino and resort assets and is relevant to hotel and gaming sector consolidation.
According to Skift, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said at Skift Global Forum that the company will launch its own AI agent in 2027, adding that the new interface would be 'much richer than a chatbot.' Chesky has previously described Airbnb's future as an 'agentic app' and an eventual AI concierge. On the August earnings call, he said that within roughly 12 to 18 months travelers would be able to bring a broad request, such as planning a family trip to Europe, and have the platform help assemble the trip. Just two weeks before the forum, he told Goldman Sachs the company was still piloting richer AI interfaces.
China Tourism News published an article by Song Junhua, director of Sun Yat-sen University's China Intangible Cultural Heritage Research Center, interpreting the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's 15th Five-Year Plan for intangible cultural heritage (ICH) protection and transmission. The article frames systematic ICH protection across three levels: the ICH elements themselves, their natural and human environment (especially the broader heritage system shared with material cultural heritage), and their relationship with national economic and social development. Coordinated protection of ICH and material heritage is highlighted as a signature innovation of the plan, supported by five measures:…
Crowne Plaza by IHG announced on 24 September 2026 the opening of Crowne Plaza Paris Marne-la-Vallée in Magny-le-Hongre, at the heart of Marne-la-Vallée. The hotel spans 2.5 hectares of landscaped grounds and offers 250 guestrooms and suites, most overlooking Golf Paris Val d'Europe. It sits about 40 minutes from central Paris and provides a complimentary shuttle to Marne-la-Vallée Chessy station and the region's theme parks. Event facilities include 1,500 square metres of flexible space, 14 meeting rooms and capacity for up to 400 delegates. The brand has 96 hotels and more than 20,400 rooms open across Europe, with a pipeline of 21 properties and over 4,300 rooms.
On September 23, Meituan announced an upgrade to its hotel AI product Jibai with the launch of a flagship edition targeting upscale and chain hotels, offering full-chain AI support spanning market insight, operational diagnosis and performance review. With merchant authorization, the flagship edition can connect to hotel PMS and other local operating systems to consolidate data scattered across channels. Meituan said the flagship edition has been co-built with a first batch of upscale and chain hotels, achieving 98% diagnostic accuracy and a 20% gain in full-chain management efficiency; merchants deeply using Jibai saw RevPAR rise an average of 11%.
China Tourism News reports that the 40th Agri-Tourism Dazeshan Grape Festival is being held in Dazeshan Town, Pingdu, Shandong, running until October 10. It features a one-stop market, for the first time sets up sub-venues at Beijing Xinfadi Market and Pingdu Impression Jiaodong agri-tourism complex, and offers an all-area cultural tourism pass. Dazeshan's grape planting area reaches 35,000 mu, annual output value exceeds 800 million yuan, and regional brand value reaches 3.683 billion yuan. Abundant sunlight this year advanced the grape season by about 10 days.
On September 23, Huazhu Club, China Merchants Bank and Mastercard launched Huazhu Club's first co-branded credit card in Shanghai. The card has no annual fee for the first year and waives the second-year fee after six transactions; everyday spending earns Huazhu Club points redeemable for room charges, and meeting monthly spending targets earns up to 20,000 points plus a Gold membership trial. Huazhu Group has over 1.26 million rooms, ranking fourth globally, and Huazhu Club has over 300 million members with the world's highest member density per room.
Zhang Ye, deputy general manager of Poly Hotels Management, disclosed to TravelDaily the R&D path and industry enablement plan for its hotel vertical large model. Poly argues general-purpose LLMs struggle to reach core hotel operating decisions due to data-security risk and prohibitive private-deployment costs. Its approach applies hotel-specific reinforcement learning on a general model base, then distills and compresses it into a lightweight small model retaining over 95%-98% of core capabilities, with deployment cost of only RMB 200,000, or even under RMB 100,000. The model is in internal testing for business analysis and is planned for external release in October or November.
On the evening of 23 September, the 2026 Hakka (Meizhou) Intangible Heritage Week opened at Meizhou Academician Square in Guangdong under the theme 'Moon over the Hakka Capital, Heritage Reunion'. It is hosted by the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Association, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and the Meizhou Municipal People's Government. The programme combines an opening ceremony, performances, seminars and markets, featuring Puzhai fire dragon, lion dance, cup-flower dance and Guangdong Han opera, Wuhua tea-picking opera, marionette shows and Hakka mountain opera. Meizhou released new heritage-themed tourism routes and signed cooperation agreements…
The fourth China (Nanning)-ASEAN Intangible Cultural Heritage Week opened on 24 September in the Sanjie Liangxiang historic district of Nanning under the theme "Intangible Heritage Mid-Autumn Wonder Tour." The opening show brought together Chinese and ASEAN heritage performances including fish-lantern processions, Zhuang drumming, Guizhou Dong grand song, Jing single-string zither, Yunnan divine-bird dance, Myanmar harp and Malaysian Mek Mulung, plus a puppet fire-spitting face-changing act paired with a robot face-changing performance. A themed market offers Guangxi heritage foods and Southeast Asian snacks, with heritage inheritors presenting Zhuang brocade, Sichuan, Suzhou, Hunan and Mia…
The Jing'an International Reception Hall on Nanjing West Road in Shanghai, converted from the former Shanghai city air terminal, reopened on 28 September 2025 with a 24-hour self-service area on the ground floor where residents and domestic and international travellers can handle Hong Kong and Macao travel endorsements and foreign-currency exchange. The venue combines talent services, cross-border data services, corporate outbound services and foreign-national facilitation services, and offers foreign-related rights guidance and inbound-tourism advice, working with a Jing'an District People's Procuratorate workstation on intellectual-property protection for cultural and tourism firms.
China Tourism News reports that Ya'an in Sichuan is integrating tea plantations and giant pandas into cultural tourism products. The Qianli Jiangshan Tu scenic area in Mingshan District, featuring vast tea fields and a high-speed rail line crossing them, has received about 650,000 visitors this year. Qilong Village now has 17 homestays and a coffee shop attracting 200-300 visitors daily. According to Ya'an's culture, radio, television, sports and tourism bureau, A-level scenic spots received 15.7899 million visitors in H1 2026, up 11.38% year on year, with ticket revenue of 102.7683 million yuan, up 26.35%.
The ninth Beijing Hongqiao International Pearl Culture Festival opened on the evening of 23 September at the Guantan Art Space in Hongqiao Market, Dongcheng District, under the theme "Moon over the Altar, Pearls Linking Five Continents," drawing several hundred Chinese and international guests and residents. Built around five core themes — international cultural exchange, industry study, cross-border trade, jewellery innovation and intangible-heritage transmission — the festival features one opening ceremony, 14 themed salons and 27 online-offline consumption-promotion events, alongside a multi-country traditional costume and painting exhibition featuring works from seven countries.
The fourth Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei joint conference on comprehensive enforcement in the cultural market was held in Beijing on September 23-24, alongside parallel sessions on the online culture cooperation mechanism and tourism market enforcement. The three Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei jurisdictions signed three cooperation documents, including the 2026 work plan, introducing six measures such as expanding the list of minor first-time violations exempt from punishment from 36 to 61 items and piloting unified administrative penalty discretion benchmarks in copyright and performance. Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing signed a memorandum on tackling illegal online tourism solicitation and false…
At the 2026 Hangzhou Yunqi Conference, Fliggy and Alibaba Cloud Bailian announced the launch of a travel AI hackathon, open to all individual developers, with outstanding works and developers receiving token subsidies, expert coaching and commercial ecosystem resources. The two-month event has preset topics including hotel staycations, destination exploration, AI private guides and inbound-travel assistants, plus an open track. It is built on Fliggy's AI open platform and flyai skill, giving developers access to price and inventory data across flights, hotels, tickets, car services and destination activities, with Alibaba Cloud Bailian providing models and workflows.
On September 23, Meituan released the full solution for its hotel AI product Jibai, covering the entire operating chain including business diagnosis, market assessment, pricing reference, budget management and review reporting. The solution includes the Jibai Lite edition for single-channel small and mid-sized hotels and the Jibai Flagship edition for multi-channel high-star and chain hotels, with built-in "AI expert teams" handling data analysis, diagnosis and recommendation generation, while final decisions remain with merchants. Jibai Lite launched in June 2025 and now covers 140,000 small and mid-sized hotel merchants.
Tourism Fiji recently released four Chinese-language travel guides covering family holidays, couples' getaways, solo travel and group travel, now available on its Chinese official website. The guides are designed around key Chinese travel scenarios and cover accommodation comparisons, regional features, experience recommendations and pre-trip planning, usable for industry partner training, client communication and independent travellers. Tourism Fiji data shows 20,500 Chinese visitors from January to August this year, up 5.25% year on year.
On September 24, the State Council Information Office held a press conference. Wang Qiming, Deputy Director of the National Railway Administration, said that the railway Mid-Autumn and National Day holiday transport started on September 23 and ends on October 8, lasting 16 days. National railways are expected to send 284 million passengers, with the highest single-day volume expected to exceed 24.4 million. Railway departments will implement a peak operation plan, with an average of 13,000 passenger trains per day, arrange night high-speed trains on popular trunk lines such as Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Guangzhou, and Beijing-Harbin, add high-speed sleeper trains, and operate cross-border, i…
A China Tourism News opinion piece notes that the Pinglu Canal was completed and opened to navigation on September 16, with four passenger routes launched the same day. The 134.2-km canal is built to inland waterway Class I standards, navigable by 5,000-tonne vessels, and provides the shortest, most economical and convenient sea access for southwest and northwest China. The article proposes building the canal's tourism brand through cultural roots, ecological and technological foundations, and all-round innovation in positioning, products, formats, communication and operations.
China Tourism News published an article by Yang Hong, director of the Communication University of China's ICH Communication Research Center, interpreting the communication upgrades in the 15th Five-Year Plan for ICH protection and transmission. The article notes that ICH-related videos on Douyin exceeded 800 billion views in 2025 and annual buyers of ICH products surpassed 300 million, but argues this heat must translate into transmission momentum. Compared with the earlier positioning of increasing ICH communication and popularization, the plan upgrades the task to enhancing communication effectiveness and influence, advancing content production, channels and brand activities: building an…
On September 24, 2026, Chimelong Group and AgiBot opened the world's first embodied intelligence theme park in Hengqin, Guangdong. The park deploys nearly 1,000 embodied intelligent robots across six scenarios: performances, AI education, smart guiding, research learning, smart companionship, and hotel reception. At the opening ceremony, the Chimelong-AgiBot Cultural Tourism Embodied Intelligence Research Institute was inaugurated, focusing on humanoid robot scenario adaptation, algorithm iteration, and commercial validation.
The China Performing Arts Association released the 2025 China Tourism Performance Market Annual Report. It shows that in 2025, large and medium-sized tourism performance projects staged 198,700 shows, up 4.95% year on year; box office revenue reached 17.442 billion yuan, up 6.43%; and attendance reached 87.9897 million, up 3.01%. The industry is shifting from scale expansion to quality improvement, with immersive experiences becoming a core competitiveness and the market showing stable base audiences, rising silver-haired groups and young audiences concentrating on innovative projects.
On 24 September, the State Council Information Office held a briefing on transport service arrangements for the Mid-Autumn and National Day holidays. Li Yang, spokesperson and vice minister of the Ministry of Transport, said six cruise ships will operate 14 voyages across Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen during the holiday period. No-destination sea cruises have grown quickly this year, with three rounds already run: Adora Magic City carried 4,000 passengers on its first sailing in Shanghai in June, and Ideal operated two voyages in Tianjin in August, with 2,700 passengers on the first. The product is a 3-day, 2-night coastal cruise without land calls, aimed mainly at younger travellers and f…
On September 22, 2026, the 22nd Linyi Calligraphy Culture Festival opened at the former residence of Wang Xizhi, themed 'Hometown of the Calligraphy Sage · China's Calligraphy City.' It features 23 activities in three areas: calligraphy exhibitions, cultural tourism experiences, and cultural consumption, running until October 21. At the opening, representatives from eight calligraphy cities jointly issued a cultural exchange initiative and launched the 'Yangtze River Delta Tourists to the Calligraphy Sage's Hometown' activity.
On September 22, the 2026 National Day culture and tourism consumption month main event was held in Mile, Yunnan, where the official Yunnan cultural tourism souvenir brand Yunnan Gift made its debut, covering more than 1,000 products across four series: trendy cultural creative goods, intangible heritage crafts, ecological products and Yunnan lifestyle goods. On October 1, the first flagship store, Yihu Qingcui, will open in Kunming's Cuihu Park inside Lianhua Temple, combining food, tea, fragrance, intangible heritage, cultural creative goods, performances and reading. Yunnan's government work report calls for building the Yunnan Gift brand, aiming to open 2-6 stores within the year.
On September 24, the Market Management Department of China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a work notice requiring local culture and tourism authorities to strengthen consultation and analysis, focus on small and medium rivers, slope canyons and flash-flood gullies, strictly implement disaster-warning call-and-feedback mechanisms and promptly evacuate visitors from danger zones. The National Meteorological Center forecasts heavy rain from western China to the Huang-Huai region during the Mid-Autumn holiday, with moderate to heavy rain and local downpours in parts of Sichuan, Chongqing, Shaanxi, Hubei, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui and Shandong, and significant rain and snow on the Qinghai-…
During the 2026 Mid-Autumn and National Day holidays, Jiangxi Airlines added and increased multiple routes, with an average of 86 daily flights, up 7.5% year-on-year. Domestically, it added or increased routes from Nanchang to Hohhot, Beihai, Zhengzhou, Sanya, Qingdao, and Haikou. Internationally, the Nanchang-Kuala Lumpur route maintains four weekly flights since September. During the holidays, ticket bookings for domestic routes over 2,000 km increased 14% year-on-year, and the Nanchang-Kuala Lumpur route had a load factor above 90%.
The State Council Information Office held a September 23 press conference on civil affairs development during the 15th Five-Year Plan. Vice Minister of Civil Affairs Shu Huihao said the ministry has advanced the Rural Place-Name Initiative since 2023, standardizing 927,000 rural place names, installing 32 million place-name signs and door plates, and having internet map platforms standardize more than 12 million rural place names and points of interest. During the 15th Five-Year Plan, the initiative will be expanded and upgraded, extending the full chain of naming, signage, data collection and mapping, deepening integration of standard place-name services with delivery logistics, livelihood…
The 15th Five-Year Plan for Building a Tourism Power designates Beijing as a tourism hub city and a key inbound tourism city. The Party Group of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism said that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period it will focus on building a world-class tourism city and global tourism destination, improving five systems: public services, premium content creation, industry development, global promotion and market governance. Specific measures include facilitating inbound tourism customs clearance, payment, communications, accommodation, transport, reservations and guiding; focusing on centralized departure tax refund mechanisms; developing business and MICE tou…
On 24 September, the National Cultural Heritage Administration held a working meeting on major progress under the 'Archaeology China' programme in Beijing, releasing results from three joint archaeological projects: the Montu Temple site in Egypt, the Ben Arous forest site in Tunisia and the Red River site in Kyrgyzstan. In Egypt, the complete structures of the second to fifth small Osiris chapels were exposed and a unique layout of twin sacred lakes confirmed. In Tunisia, Punic-to-Roman building remains were found and a small urban heritage park was built on the site. In Kyrgyzstan, the overall city layout was confirmed, revealing medieval construction techniques and diverse cultures in th…
Viking Cruises marks its tenth year in China in 2026, having served more than 100,000 Chinese travellers over the decade, with highly educated silver-haired customers as its core segment. Viking entered China in 2016 with Chinese-language European river cruises; in 2026 its first Chinese-language European ocean cruise launched, making Viking the only cruise brand globally offering both Chinese-language European river and ocean cruises. In 2023 Viking became the first cruise company to announce resumption of China outbound European river cruise operations. Its repurchase rate in China is nearly 20% in recent years. Data show China's silver economy was about RMB 7 trillion in 2025, roughly 6%…
At the 2026 Hangzhou Yunqi Conference, Fliggy and Alibaba Cloud Bailian announced the industry's first travel AI hackathon, open to all individual developers, with outstanding works and developers receiving token subsidies, expert coaching and commercial ecosystem resources. The two-month event has preset topics including hotel staycations, destination exploration, AI private guides and inbound-travel assistants, plus an open track. It is built on Fliggy's AI open platform and flyai skill, giving developers access to price and inventory data across flights, hotels, tickets, car services and destination activities, with Alibaba Cloud Bailian providing models and workflows.
In the first half of this year, listed Chinese OTAs continued to grow overall, but the growth logic is changing. Ctrip's net revenue was RMB 31.871 billion, up 11.15% year on year, while net profit attributable to shareholders fell to RMB 4.1 million due to an antitrust penalty. Tongcheng Travel's revenue was RMB 9.993 billion, up 10.5%, with net profit of RMB 1.411 billion, up 7.67%. Tuniu's net revenue was about RMB 272 million, up 7.58%, but profitability came under pressure. Ctrip is betting on international business, with inbound tourism orders up 95% year on year in H1 and international platform revenue growth exceeding 50% in Q2. Tongcheng Travel expanded into hotel management and hi…