Raini Hamdi

A new brand, Sunerra, takes RedDoorz into the midscale arena of three and four stars hotels. Not only that, it will manage these hotels. Can RedDoorz do it, or will the move dilute its focus as a budget player and eat up resources?

Booking data suggests a modest outcome for Thailand's reopening this summer, but it gets better in winter. For international arrivals volume to be amazing again, that'll take some time, probably two years.

A reopening with mainland China would be a lifeboat for Hong Kong's beleaguered tourism industry. Talks seem to be escalating but hopes are kept in check as vaccine hesitancy for now serves as a real bummer for recovery.

While travel is resuming in the West, it is retreating in the East as Asian countries struggle to kickstart international tourism safely amid surges in Covid-19 cases, clusters and, most worrisome, more contagious variants. A sad reversal of fate.

While the "one-island, one-resort" concept will remain its unique sell, Maldives is moving to diversify its product offering, a step in the right direction. The question is, will investors bite?

The industry blames quarantines for keeping tourists away. Agoda is on a quest to make it a solution, not the problem, to revive international travel to Asia. Here's why and how.

Singapore sees a huge future in sustainable tourism as an outcome of the pandemic. And when Singapore sees, Singapore does.

Thai tourism players are pinning hopes on a soft tourism opening in Phuket to bring back international travelers. May the so-called “tourism sandbox” model be more solid than a castle in the sand.

More and more, the unfriendliness of a destination has unsafe undercurrents to it. The worst that could happen is if Covid is gone, but anti-Asian hate that it has bred lives on and becomes the biggest obstacle to getting Chinese and Asian tourists to travel again.

For tourist guides who have been able to hang on to their jobs, grasp new trends, and buff up on technology, the time to shine is near as travel starts to rebound. Sadly, that's a smaller group.