Sorry, you have not enabled Javascript for your internet browser, so some of our website's pages may not render as fully as intended.
Please Click here for easy instructions on how to enable Javascript on your browser or consult your IT support staff for help.

News on Tourism & Travel In China

1 2 3 4 5

Travel giant restructures its China business
Mar 20, 2020 (WiC 487)

Who’d want to be a boss in the travel industry right now? Hotels are closed, airlines are grounded, and countries are closing their borders to non-nationals. Some of the worst trading conditions in history are the backdrop to a story from ...

Sometimes the house loses

Macau imposes half-month casino ban amid coronavirus outbreak
Feb 14, 2020 (WiC 482)

Such was the clamour to get into the Sands Macao on opening night in May 2004 that many of the casino’s doors were ripped off their hinges. The scenes this week in the former Portuguese colony couldn’t have been more different. All 41 of ...

Planning their trip

TripAdvisor gets big China ally for sales push
Nov 22, 2019 (WiC 475)

In Chinese folklore, owls aren’t the most auspicious of birds in part because their hoot is said to sound like the word for digging a grave. That hasn’t stopped TripAdvisor from embracing its owl logo in China. Back in 2015, it even changed ...

Disney hit by Shanghai lawsuit over its ban on bringing food into its park
Aug 30, 2019 (WiC 464)

KFC and McDonald’s offerings in China can be vastly different from their menus elsewhere in the world (see WiC462 for more on KFC’s success selling late-night offal). But while foreign brands are keen to cater to local tastes in China, they ...

Crossing the water

New bridge brings a million people to Macau in first two months
Feb 8, 2019 (WiC 440)

Resentment at the smoking ban in Macau’s casinos smoulders on, it seems. We first wrote about the restrictions four years ago (see WiC260) but they clearly still rankle: last month a police officer even had to fire a warning shot during a clash ...

Lacking the personal touch

New Alibaba hotel in Hangzhou hopes to dispense with human workers
Nov 23, 2018 (WiC 433)

Generally speaking, hotels love to talk up the ‘people skills’ of their staff when they are promoting their services. Not so at Flyzoo, Alibaba’s new unmanned hotel in Hangzhou. There, the front-of-house work is done by robots and by ...

A time less golden

National Day holiday sparks a horrific week for travellers
Oct 6, 2017 (WiC 383)

Cathay Pacific reinforced its position as Hong Kong’s flagship carrier in 2006 by buying out local rival Dragonair from Chinese investors including the Citic Group. However, a new competitor emerged in the same year: Hainan Airlines, part of ...

No stars out of five

Premium hotels in damage control after cleanliness survey spooks guests
Sep 22, 2017 (WiC 381)

In 2016, American news magazine Inside Edition released a report suggesting that three out of nine New York hotels in its study weren’t changing bedsheets after guests checked out. A separate 2012 review on contamination levels in hotel rooms ...

Problem in the Pacific

Saipan’s fledgling casino project runs into trouble over Chinese workers
Jun 2, 2017 (WiC 368)

The bankruptcy of First Natural Foods was a major stockmarket scandal in Hong Kong. The Fujian-based frozen seafood provider was declared insolvent in 2009 and its prospects were dire until a restructuring in 2014, with the emergence of a new ...

Love thy lodger

Airbnb has a new name and a new growth strategy in China
Mar 31, 2017 (WiC 360)

It’s typical for students at American colleges to display their names outside of their dormitory rooms. In February, a vandal roamed the corridors of one dormitory at Columbia University and removed only the name cards that had been written in ...

1 2 3 4 5