Peden Doma Bhutia

As travel moves to the next stage of recovery and resilience, investment will be key to unlock this phase. With sustainability as the key driver of choice, these investments will need to make local communities active stakeholders.

Destinations taking baby steps towards travel recovery should look to turn entry barriers into opportunities. Governments should reflect and review their pre-Covid traditional visa policies to make way for technology-enabled progressive approaches and the visa fee, though small, plays its part in determining travel decisions.

As it prepares to host Middle East's first-ever FIFA World Cup, Qatar expects the event to offer unique marketing potential to place the destination firmly on the tourism map. But for a country whose pre-Covid arrivals stood at 2.1 million in 2019, a goal of 1.5 million tourists for the two months of the tournament sounds overly ambitious.

Keen to feature the resort city of Eilat in the international tourism map, Israel has reintroduced the plan that allows airlines to avail $65 subsidy for every arriving passenger. However, it may take more than this for the government to woo tourists to the expensive city.

Even as uncertainty continues to weigh on travel plans, Marriott is offering personalized experiences through its loyalty program in Asia. The hotel chain currently has more than 55 million Marriott Bonvoy members in Asia Pacific.

The confidence of the hospitality sector in Indonesia seems to be getting stronger as the archipelago relaxes arrival restrictions. As hotly anticipated properties now announce opening dates, Indonesia is clearly emerging as a key market in Southeast Asia's hospitality ecosystem.

Sri Lanka’s biggest inbound market — India — is turning towards alternative destinations. The current Sri Lankan political turmoil threatens to cripple the tourism industry, which is worth more than $3.6 billion to the country and is the third largest foreign exchange earner.

It's good to be cautious, but Thailand may pay the price of being cautious to a fault. Having already lost out on the first-mover advantage, will the delay in reopening deal a major blow to the already-fragile economy of Southeast Asia's biggest tourism hub?

Even as a McKinsey report deciphers key trends in China’s tourism market this year, the million-dollar question of when the world will get to welcome back Chinese tourists remains largely unanswered. That means a new type of Chinese tourist is opting for deeper local culture experiences.

An ambitious target of one million tourists by the end of 2022 has Mauritius — a largely luxury tourist destination, diversifying to lure even digital nomads and retirees. Will this help them deliver the numbers?