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Lunar New Year 2024: Overseas bookings more than doubled, rise in ‘escape’ and theme park travel

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SINGAPORE, Feb. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — A global trend has emerged in recent years: more and more travellers are ditching the traditional Lunar New Year celebrations at home and jetting off for what’s been dubbed ‘Bi Nian’ (New Year escape) travel. It’s all about ringing in the holiday in a different country, adding an adventurous twist to the festivities. Families are getting in on the action too, choosing to embark on group getaways, shaking up the typical Lunar New Year routine.

Data from Trip.com Group paints an exciting picture: there has been a significant 279% surge in overseas bookings during the first five days of the Lunar New Year holiday compared to last year. And it’s not just one or two spots; this spike is happening in various countries where the Lunar New Year is celebrated, including Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, China and South Korea. This trend underscores a growing appetite for soaking up diverse cultures and diving into unique celebrations abroad.

Younger generation ‘escaping’ LNY, collective family getaways are a growing trend

As many gather together at home to usher in the Spring Festival, some members of the younger generation are doing quite the opposite.

Driven by a thirst for discovery, Millennial and Gen Z individuals are redefining their Lunar New Year, eschewing traditional celebrations in favour of adventures abroad. They make up 38.5% of all bookings during the holiday, seeking out vibrant cities like Bangkok, Tokyo, and Singapore for solo explorations. And when they’re not flying solo, you’ll find them jetting off with friends to attractions such as Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay as well as surprising finds such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum.

Yet, amidst this rise in independent travel, the family remains at the heart of Lunar New Year celebrations for many. Collective family getaways are on the rise, constituting 47% of all Spring Festival tourists from China, with customised tours and local guides for private tours gaining popularity. On a wider scale, Thailand, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates had the most local guide bookings during the holiday season.

Travellers embraced theme parks and unique experiences

Short-haul trips dominated Lunar New Year travel this year, with an impressive 199% uptick compared to last year, indicating a preference for flights lasting four hours or less.

But it wasn’t just about getting there quickly; these adventurers were all about seeking out one-of-a-kind experiences during their vacations. From hitting the slopes at ski resorts to embarking on exotic cruises and exploring safari parks, unique adventures were the top picks for bookings in tours and activities. For instance, Shenzhen’s Safari Park and Guangzhou Bonski, an indoor ski resort, were among the top overall attractions on Trip.com’s vibrant user-generated content platform, Trip Moments.

Throngs of travellers also sought out adventures at thrilling theme parks. For visitors from Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, the Disneyland parks in Tokyo and Hong Kong stole the spotlight as top attractions. Japan, on the other hand, emerged as a vibrant “theme park” hub, with Universal Studios Japan and Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo – The Making of Harry Potter standing out as favourites alongside Disneyland. Other theme parks, such as Malaysia’s kid-friendly LEGOLAND, and Shenzhen’s Window of the World, also drew crowds.

Top overseas ‘escapes’ during the Lunar New Year

Southeast Asia emerged as a hotspot for jet setters in the whirlwind of Lunar New Year travel, with Malaysia and Thailand leading the charge. Overseas bookings surged by 202% and 195% respectively, compared to last year’s festivities. A trend of intra-Asia travel particularly took hold in Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, with top spots including China and Japan.

While in Singapore, holidaymakers set their sights on relatively nearby destinations, from bustling Bangkok to Johor Bahru, and even the serene shores of Bali. On average, Singaporean travellers embarked on 2.5-day escapades, with the majority taking off on 9 February, the eve of the Lunar New Year, and returning on 12 February to sync with the nation’s designated public holidays.

Meanwhile, China saw an unprecedented threefold growth in overseas bookings compared to last year, amidst a backdrop of relaxed visa requirements. Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, which enjoyed mutual visa-free arrangements, emerged alongside perennial favourites like Japan as the go-to destinations for Chinese travellers.

As for South Korea, travellers were most keen on escaping to Japan, with top cities such as Osaka, Tokyo and Fukuoka drawing arrivals. For South Korean travellers seeking an alternative to Japan, Vietnam’s serene coastal city of Da Nang also emerged as a popular destination.

As the Spring Festival festivities wind down, we reflect on its multi-faceted impact on travel. Whether venturing solo, with friends, or alongside family, the Lunar New Year unites us in a shared celebration of renewal, prosperity, and joy.

About Trip.com Group

Trip.com Group is a leading global travel service provider comprising of Trip.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner, and Qunar. Across its platforms, Trip.com Group helps travellers around the world make informed and cost-effective bookings for travel products and services and enables partners to connect their offerings with users through the aggregation of comprehensive travel-related content and resources, and an advanced transaction platform consisting of apps, websites and 24/7 customer service centres. Founded in 1999 and listed on NASDAQ in 2003 and HKEX in 2021, Trip.com Group has become one of the best-known travel groups in the world, with the mission “to pursue the perfect trip for a better world”. Find out more about Trip.com Group here: group.trip.com. Follow us on: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube

SOURCE Trip.com Group

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Huawei Launches Over 20 All-New Xinghe Intelligent Network Offerings to Amplify Industrial Intelligence

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1 hour ago

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September 21, 2024

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SHANGHAI, Sept. 21, 2024 /CNW/ — During HUAWEI CONNECT 2024, Leon Wang, President of Huawei’s Data Communication Product Line, announced more than 20 all-new Xinghe Intelligent Network offerings globally at the summit themed “Xinghe Intelligent Network, Amplify Industrial Intelligence”. These purpose-built offerings contribute to an AI network ecosystem and help customers seize opportunities for intelligent development and maximize intelligent productivity.

With the development of AI technologies, the world is advancing from digital transformation to intelligent transformation. All industries are quickly adopting AI technologies to create new use cases, for example, self-driving cars, intelligent diagnosis and treatment, and intelligent train inspection. All of these are significantly improving the efficiency and experience of our work and daily lives.

The advent of the intelligent era is driving networks into intelligent ones. Huawei has been making joint efforts with partners to lead research and practices of intelligent networks. That’s why Huawei constantly upgrades its Xinghe Intelligent Network offerings to help customers grasp opportunities for intelligent development, build new intelligent network infrastructure, and maximize intelligent productivity in the intelligent era. Key highlights include the following:

Xinghe Intelligent Campus focuses on AI-enabled, experience-centric campus network construction, ensuring zero freezing for audio and video applications, zero degradation on services, and zero waiting for interactions.Xinghe Intelligent WAN introduces a wide range of intelligent technologies to intelligently schedule millions of flows and precisely optimize service experience.Xinghe Intelligent Fabric adopts the AI Turbo engine to improve network throughput, enhancing foundation model training efficiency.Xinghe Intelligent Network Security integrates AI technologies into network security detection, accurately and rapidly identifying threats.

To support network solutions in various scenarios, Huawei released more than 20 featured offerings globally. Examples include the industry’s first 100 Tbps fixed-form Ethernet data center switch, the industry’s first 51.2 Tbps liquid-cooled fixed-form data center switch, the industry’s first AI router, high-quality 10 Gbps campus switches and Wi-Fi 7 APs, Intelligent SASE Branch Security Solution, and the industry’s first IP Autonomous Driving Network Solution. All these offerings are designed to help customers with greater business returns.

As the intelligent era calls for intelligent networks, Huawei will continue to drive the development of intelligent networks and upgrade its Xinghe Intelligent Network products and solutions, ultimately helping global customers to stride towards the intelligent era and reap more benefits.

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SOURCE Huawei

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HUAWEI CONNECT 2024 | Huawei Unveils the Brand-New Xinghe Intelligent Fabric Solution, Powering the AI Era

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2 hours ago

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September 21, 2024

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SHANGHAI, Sept. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — At HUAWEI CONNECT 2024, over 300 industry leaders, experts, and scholars gathered for the data center network session themed “Xinghe Intelligent Fabric, Powering the AI Era.” The event featured discussions on the evolution and technological advancements of data center networks. During the session, Arthur Wang, President of Data Center Network Domain at Huawei’s Data Communication Product Line, introduced the newly upgraded Xinghe Intelligent Fabric solution. This cutting-edge solution aims to establish a data center network characterized by one map for intelligent operations and maintenance (O&M), one network for diverse computing, and one platform for simplified deployment, providing a robust network infrastructure to support enterprises’ digital and intelligent transformations.

In his keynote speech, Arthur Wang outlined the emerging trends in data center network development. He emphasized that in the AI era, data center networks require both a “brilliant brain” and “resilient bones.” The newly launched Xinghe Intelligent Fabric solution is designed to deliver a powerful network infrastructure tailored for the AI era, featuring:

One Map for Intelligent O&M: Zero Management Concerns

Huawei’s exclusive network digital map enables rapid cross-data center and cross-vendor fault identification within minutes. Additionally, the NetMaster network large model facilitates AI-driven O&M, eliminating manual intervention and ensuring zero management concerns.

One Network for Diverse Computing: Zero Service Interruptions

The Xinghe Intelligent Fabric supports various application scenarios, including intelligent computing, general-purpose computing, and storage. The innovative Network Scale Load Balancing (NSLB) algorithm increases network throughput to 95% and boosts AI training efficiency by over 10%. With the exclusive iReliable three-level fast switchover capability, it achieves sub-millisecond switchover, guaranteeing zero service interruptions.

One Platform for Simplified Deployment: Zero Configuration Errors

By employing digital twins to simulate networks in advance and verify configurations post-deployment, the solution ensures 100% accuracy in network changes. By harnessing network-security convergence capabilities, AI creates an intelligent security matrix to analyze millions of security policies, achieving zero configuration errors.

Looking ahead, Huawei will continue to collaborate with industry partners to enhance research and innovation in data center networks, promote intelligent upgrades, and create greater value for the industry.

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SOURCE Huawei

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Cultivating a Culture of Peace: International Day of Peace Statement by Education Cannot Wait Executive Director Yasmine Sherif

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5 hours ago

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September 21, 2024

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NEW YORK, Sept. 21, 2024 /CNW/ — The longing for peace transcends time, geography and religion. Based on justice, human rights and universal values outlined in the UN Charter, a culture of peace brings us all together in our common agenda for humanity. We can only co-exist by aligning ourselves with such a world order.

On today’s International Day of Peace, we call on world leaders to end conflict and embrace a culture of peace as enshrined in the UN Charter and related international law.

As the UN General Assembly outlined in the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace  a quarter of a century ago, this must include: “Respect for life, human rights and fundamental freedoms; the promotion of non-violence through education, dialogue and cooperation; commitment to peaceful settlement of conflicts; and adherence to freedom, justice, democracy, tolerance, solidarity, cooperation, pluralism, cultural diversity, dialogue and understanding at all levels of society and among nations.”

Educating for peace starts at home and continues in school through years of education. This takes place during the most formative years of a child learning about their identity, ethics, values, conscience, courage and compassion. Wherever there has been a failure in imparting on children the imperative for peace, the world is turned upside down. This is a global failure with no geographical boundaries.

Today, we live in a world of unprecedented violence, armed conflict and chaos. All the genuine and heartfelt commitments made in 1945 in the UN Charter seem to be fading away. Children and adolescents are the most vulnerable, the least protected, and the most impacted. They bear the brunt. 

Global conflicts killed three times as many children in 2023 than in the previous year, according to the United Nations. The number of forcibly displaced people reached an unprecedented 120 million in May 2024.

“In 2023, the United Nations verified a record 32,990 grave violations against 22,557 children in 26 conflict zones, a 35% increase from the previous year,” according to recent analysis by the UN.

We can end these violations and invest in a constructive co-existence globally. We can use our resources for education, rather than for wars. In classrooms around the world, girls and boys who have withstood the wrath of war can rebuild their hopes and their lives. Cultivating a culture of peace is possible. The financial resources exist. The choice as to how we use them is ours.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cultivating-a-culture-of-peace-international-day-of-peace-statement-by-education-cannot-wait-executive-director-yasmine-sherif-302254413.html

SOURCE Education Cannot Wait

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