From runway to city street

In Edinburgh, airport data are shared with tourism authorities, while changing market trends can trigger rapid adjustments in marketing and visitor services. Success depends less on the strength of any individual organization than on how effectively they work together.

The same logic applies at a larger scale.

Romulo Vallejo, director of statistics and research at the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, argues that airports and destinations should be developed together rather than sequentially.

He pointed to Punta Cana as an example.

When Punta Cana International Airport opened in the mid-1980s, it handled fewer than 4,000 passengers during its first year. In 2025 alone, the airport served more than 11 million passengers and accounted for over half of all air traffic in the Dominican Republic.

The airport and destination grew side by side.

"Build the runway and the destination together and both will thrive," Vallejo says.

Behind the industry's enthusiasm lies a larger economic calculation.

Research from China's Ministry of Commerce shows that inbound tourism revenue currently accounts for less than 0.5 percent of China's GDP. In Thailand, the figure exceeds 10 percent, while in many European countries it ranges between 1 and 3 percent.

The gap represents significant room for growth.

For You Xugong, general manager of Beijing Best Tour Ltd, the challenge is coordination.

Airlines plan routes. Tourism companies design experiences. Hotels provide accommodation. Travelers, however, experience them as a single journey.

"The question is how to make those different parts work together," he says.

Industry associations, he suggests, could help aggregate demand and create stronger incentives for airlines to tailor services and routes.

"If an association can tell an airline that we can bring 100,000 passengers, the airline will listen," he says.

According to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, Beijing received 2.67 million inbound visitor trips from January to May, up 35.3 percent year-on-year. Tourism spending reached $3.64 billion, an increase of 42.4 percent.

Yet integration remains easier to discuss than to achieve.

Liu Huiyuan, chief operating officer of TUI China, which specializes in leisure tourism, says that airlines and tourism companies often operate on different business cycles and incentives.

Most cooperation is still project-based, and there is not yet a long-term mechanism that aligns both sides, he says.

He also points to a structural challenge: airlines operate on fixed schedules and long planning cycles, while tourism demand can shift rapidly in response to holidays, policy changes and market trends.

What is emerging, however, is a broader redefinition of travel.

For decades, aviation and tourism were treated as separate industries. One moved people. The other entertained them after they arrived. Increasingly, destinations are trying to erase that distinction.

Back at Daxing airport, Wang still thinks about first impressions.

The goal, he says, is no longer simply to move passengers from one place to another. It is to make them curious enough to keep exploring.

The plane ticket, in other words, will no longer be just transportation.

It will be the first chapter of the journey.