Taiwan, Vietnam among Asian destinations where local bookings recovering

Travel is recovering more quickly in Asia than in the West — but its the domestic market that is driving that recovery, an online travel agency told CNBC this week.

“Asia is generally leading the way,” said John Brown, chief executive of Agoda, a subsidiary of American online travel firm Booking Holdings. “We’ve seen again in markets like Taiwan, certainly places like Thailand, where they really have the best control over Covid — those are the markets where we see the domestic bookings doing the best.”

The best pockets of recovery are domestic travel in Taiwan, Thailand and increasingly, Vietnam, he said.

Taiwan has reported 617 confirmed patients so far and has been free of domestic transmissions for more than 200 days.

Thailand and Vietnam have also been successful in containing the pandemic, with 3,920 and 1,307 confirmed cases respectively, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

“Those domestic markets are even better off than they were last year, for domestic [travel] only,” Brown told “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.

In Europe and the U.S., there are pockets where domestic travel also looks “relatively good” despite coronavirus cases surging, Brown noted.

“But really, all eyes globally are looking at Asia to see how we manage this both domestically, and again with regard to the travel bubble between Singapore and Hong Kong, and the many others that we hope … will open up pretty soon,” he said.