By 2050, over 70% of the world population will be living in cities covering less than 2% of the earth’s surface. Never had city been so challenged and the trend continues to grow. And, this rise to many issues like rising inequality, environmental pollution, infrastructure access, traffic congestion, mobility, safety and health of residents are only a few examples.

As an economic barometer, the tourism industry is among the first to bear the brunt of economic slowdown and grapple with uncertainties on future directions. The challenge to find the next big opportunity is getting tougher, as it requires looking beyond the obvious to identify underlying trends and make accurate predictions. So what are the genuine needs of today's global travelers? What gaps are there in the market?

Since its launch in April 2016, Vision 2030 has had a mixed record of achieving its ambitious goals. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) has been able to launch some aspects of the agenda, such as cultural and social reforms, with dizzying spread and little resistance.

Hanting Hotels plans to open 10,000 hotels by 2030 to become the world's largest single hotel brand as it sheds its budget image and shifts toward the high-end market.

A Beijing-based startup SpaceBox, which focuses on providing leisure accommodation for young people, has recently raised over RMB10 million in its A+ round financing led by Aqua Venture, which also participated in the startup’s A round financing.

Turkey held the second wind power plant tender as part of its Renewable Energy Resource Zones (YEKA) project. The total 1 GW tender was split into 250 MW each across four provinces in Turkey—Aydın, Muğla, Balıkesir, and Çanakkale.

Long-standing organizations that have built brand legacy over decades can no longer fall back on age-old practices, especially when it comes to customer data. It will be foolhardy to have data distributed in disparate silos across the entity, for example.

China has reported a robust growth of the sharing accomodation sector as market transactions surged by 37.5 percent year on year in 2018, data from the State Information Center (SIC) showed.

Marriott International held its inaugural Innovation event in Shanghai designed to spark discussions of future travel earlier this week. At this event, Marriott International gathered insightful leaders including Alibaba, Accenture Interactive and emerging innovators to share their vision for the future of travel.

A Chinese laundry has come up with a fresh idea aiming to assure hotel clients that their bed linen is washed properly, simultaneously birthing a new trending topic on microblogging platform Weibo.