Chinese travelers want to go abroad again. That much is clear from this month’s lead story. What’s less clear is whether the industry can get them...  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Read online Everyone Wants to Fly to Asia. Not Everyone Can From flight shortages in China to a leadership overhaul at Air India, it's all about closing the gap between demand and capacity.   Peden Doma Bhutia, Asia Editor August 7th, 2026 Chinese travelers want to go abroad again. That much is clear from this month’s lead story. What’s less clear is whether the industry can get them there. A Dragon Trail survey of 310 Chinese travel agents found demand for outbound trips climbing sharply this year, with summer bookings up too. But flights to Japan are running at less than half of 2019 levels, and Thailand isn’t much better off. Airlines, visa offices, and airports now have the harder job of catching up. India is chasing its own kind of momentum, from a different direction. Air India has hired a new CEO to steer a turnaround the airline badly needs. Hyatt, for its part, is looking at India not as an add-on market but as one worth building around, with a possible domestic-focused brand and acquisitions in the mix. China’s hotel and travel sectors, meanwhile, are sorting out what comes after years of turbulence. Trip.com is still absorbing the cost of an antitrust case that forced it to shut down a key tool, with the damage now visible in its earnings. And a wave of hotel investment sweeping the country turns out to be more than picking over distressed assets — investors are finding real value, not just bargains. Demand, in other words, has returned. What each of these stories is really about is who gets there first.     Skift Aviation Forum Profitability, capacity, AI, loyalty: the questions that set aviation's agenda for the year get argued out in one room, in one day. The CEOs of International Airlines Group, Breeze Airways, and Los Angeles World Airports are among the first confirmed for the 6th annual Skift Aviation Forum, November 12 at TWA Hotel, JFK. REGISTER NOW         Inside JetBlue’s New Financing Play CLARITYPAY + SKIFT On Airline Weekly Lounge, ClarityPay CEO Houman Motaharian explains how its JetBlue partnership could turn financing into a loyalty engine. WATCH THE PODCAST     EDITOR’S PICKS     Air India and IndiGo Just Hired CEOs for Two Very Different Global Goals By Peden Doma Bhutia August 6, 2026 Neither airline hired for today’s problems. Air India is trying to make a 600-aircraft expansion look orderly, while IndiGo is trying to ensure its global ambitions don’t arrive before its widebody fleet. GET THE STORY Air India Names New CEO: Former Ethiopian Airlines Boss to Lead Turnaround By Peden Doma Bhutia August 5, 2026 Tewolde Gebremariam coming in as Air India CEO was definitely not in our bingo card, but it may be exactly the kind of operator the airline needs for its next phase. GET THE STORY Hyatt Weighs ‘India-for-India’ Brand and Acquisitions for 5x Growth: Exclusive By Peden Doma Bhutia August 3, 2026 The world’s biggest hotel companies seem to have settled the “why India?” debate. The real competition now is over execution — acquisitions or partnerships, luxury or midscale, metros or smaller cities. GET THE STORY Accor and Treebo Call Off Deal in India: Scoop By Peden Doma Bhutia July 31, 2026 Accor's 300-hotel target by 2030 was never going to hinge on Treebo alone, but the exit strips out the one partner that gave the joint venture genuine reach into the tier-two and tier-three towns. GET THE STORY China’s Outbound Travel Recovery Has a New Problem: Not Enough Planes By Peden Doma Bhutia July 29, 2026 Chinese demand for outbound travel continues to grow in 2026 despite war and diplomatic fallout. What's holding the market back now isn't hesitation, it's a shortage of flights. GET THE STORY Trip.com Killed Tool at the Center of China’s Antitrust Case — and It’s Already Hitting Profits By Peden Doma Bhutia July 27, 2026 Trip.com will now have to prove that it can keep hotels, sustain growth, and defend its market position without the commercial tools that regulators ruled crossed the line. GET THE STORY China’s Hotel Investment Surge Isn’t Just a Distress Sale Story By Peden Doma Bhutia July 27, 2026 A regulatory change most investors are still catching up to is reshaping how China’s hotel assets get bought, sold and valued. GET THE STORY China’s $770 Million Crackdown on Trip.com Is Really About Platform Power By Peden Doma Bhutia July 27, 2026 China's latest antitrust ruling puts new scrutiny on how online travel platforms use exclusivity, pricing, and traffic allocation to maintain their edge. GET THE STORY IndiGo Co-Founder: Airport-Airline Ownership Is a ‘Massive Conflict of Interest’ By Peden Doma Bhutia July 23, 2026 If the idea is to break the two-airline duopoly, the irony is hard to miss. India could end up replacing airline concentration with something even more powerful — a conglomerate that controls the skies, the gates, and everything in between. GET THE STORY Indian Hotels Company Targets Switzerland and Southeast Asia; Dubai Rebound Stalls By Peden Doma Bhutia July 22, 2026 IHCL would have preferred to enter Switzerland first, but instead chose Frankfurt, where strong India connectivity promised quicker returns, rather than rushing into a costlier, lower-yield Swiss market. GET THE STORY       DEFINING THE FUTURE OF TRAVEL. Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here © 2026 Skift 35 W 31st St. New York, New York 10001, United States