A 5.1-million Russian-arrival surge into Vietnam, Thailand and China in 2025 is the clearest evidence yet that cross-border travel has stopped behaving like a global market, Expedia Group's Michael Dykes told delegates this week.

The Vice President, Market Management APAC, used his slot at WiT Japan 2026 to argue that the long-promised frictionless global traveler is "less real today than it's ever been."

What has changed for sellers of travel?

Asia-to-Europe airline corridors have been disrupted by conflict. Visa wait times for the United States have stretched to hours. Immigration screening has grown more intrusive. Thailand has cut visa duration. Some countries have lost access to global payment systems.

The IMF has separately warned that barriers to the movement of goods, services, investment and people will weaken global growth and innovation — a macro backdrop that reinforces what Dykes described from inside the booking funnel.

How big is the Asia-to-Asia rerouting?

Demand has not stopped, Dykes argued. It has reorganized along what he called "paths of least resistance" — corridors defined by visa openness, payment compatibility and geopolitical comfort.

Three numbers quantify the shift:

• 5.1 million Russian travelers entered Vietnam, Thailand and China in 2025
• 50 percent year-on-year inbound growth into China following smart-visa expansion
• 40 percent of humanity lives in markets whose digital operating system is entirely sovereign

China's case carries the heaviest commercial signal for sellers. A 50 percent inbound jump in a single year — attributed by Dykes to visa liberalization — marks one of the steepest demand re-routings of the current cycle. It is a direct cue for OTAs, tour operators and hotel revenue managers to reweight inventory, content and paid media spend.

Canada and Brazil are also building new flows into APAC, Dykes added, suggesting the bloc-aligned travel thesis reaches well beyond the China-Russia corridor.

Why does payment fragmentation matter for OTAs?

Digital infrastructure is now a parallel travel barrier. WeChat, Alipay, TikTok and domestic card schemes are not optional distribution lanes — they are the operating system of daily life across much of the region.

"Payments are where it gets real. Our (digital) wallets connect us and divide us," Dykes said.

For Expedia and its competitors, that means marketing funnels, conversion paths and customer-service infrastructure must work across multiple stacks at once. Dykes framed eventual winners as digital "Switzerlands" — platforms deliberately neutral across competing payment, identity and social ecosystems.

Who should sellers target in APAC?

Demographics, Dykes said, are pulling acquisition strategies in two directions.

• 715 million Gen Alpha consumers now entering or on the cusp of the travel market
• 722 million Silver travelers — older, wealthier, traveling further and longer

"No single traveler profile serves both," Dykes said. "Which travelers are you building your business behind? Which side are you on?"

For distributors, the operational question is how much inventory, content and paid media to split between capturing younger, wallet-native travelers and older, higher-yielding spenders.

What comes next?

Dykes' central projection — that travel will keep conforming to the shape of economic and geopolitical blocs rather than to the frictionless ideal — has direct implications for revenue mix, channel investment and political-risk hedging across APAC sellers.

Q1 inbound arrival data from China, Thailand and Vietnam will be the first measurable test of whether the re-routing continues to accelerate — or whether the next geopolitical shock redraws the corridors again.