As food tourism rises, discovering, savouring, and sharing culinary offerings are now key aspects of the traveller experience for seniors looking to explore.
Trip.com data reveals an over 30% year-on-year increase in senior users searching for food-related keywords globally, with growing interest in terms like “fine dining,” “local specialities,” and food-destination pairings like “Tokyo street food” and “Singapore cuisine.” Moreover, a user survey reveals 44% of users consider food experiences when choosing destinations.
Sunny Sun, Vice President of Trip.com Group and CEO of Trip.Gourmet, shared: “More travellers are excited to explore the world through the universal language of food. At Trip.Gourmet, we celebrate culinary excellence, from fine dining to local flavours. Our new rankings and upgrades empower travellers to savour exceptional gastronomic experiences wherever they go.”
Trip.Gourmet Lists – Discover the World’s Best Restaurants
Founded in 2016, Trip.Gourmet on Trip.com is a one-stop food guide, offering global restaurant rankings, travel-focused food content, and reservation options. At the event, it introduced several exciting upgrades:
New global selection and ranking system: Now covers over 10,000 restaurants in over 300 cities and regions. It has categorised them into four new themes that blend travel with dining: Fine Dining (Black Diamond, Diamond and Platinum), Local Restaurants, Light Bites, and Restaurants for Views & Experiences.
These are selected based on restaurant quality and popularity, user reviews, relevance to theme, and popularity of the destinations. There is also greater emphasis on the travel attributes of restaurants, compared to other food quality-centred rankings.
Another major update is the full integration of selected restaurants within Trip.Best lists on the Trip.com app, allowing travellers to seamlessly discover top accommodations, activities, dining, and nightlife in one place. Learn more about Trip.Best here.
Recognising Culinary Excellence in Fine Dining & Luxury Hotels
Several fine dining establishments from the Asia-Pacific region were recognised at the awards ceremony, including Odette, Waku Ghin by Tetsuya Wakuda and CUT by Wolfgang Puck in Singapore; Kubu at Mandapa in Bali; Potong and Le Du in Bangkok; SÉZANNE and RyuGin in Tokyo, and La Yeon and Bicena in Seoul.
On the prestigious Black Diamond list, nearly 49.12% of the top restaurants hailed from France, China, and Japan, reflecting their dominance in the fine dining scene. Europe made a strong showing with entries like Core by Clare Smyth (UK), L’Oiseau Blanc (France) and Disfrutar (Spain).
Hotel dining featured prominently, with 41% of the Trip.Gourmet rankings dedicated to luxury hotel restaurants, a rising preference from more affluent travellers. Notable mentions include Lai Po Heen at the Mandarin Oriental in Kuala Lumpur, JAAN by Kirk Westaway in Swissôtel The Stamford Singapore, and Ossiano at the Atlantis, The Palm Dubai. In particular, the Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton brands stood out, hosting multiple top-rated restaurants in locations like Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo, and Osaka.
Easy Reservations at Your Fingertips
Trip.Gourmet now supports direct reservations to over 50,000 restaurants with leading restaurant booking platforms, making it easier than ever for travellers to secure reservations at top dining establishments worldwide.
This includes The Fork in Europe, Chope in Southeast Asia, OpenRice in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regions, OpenTable in North America, and TableCheck in Japan.,
A Love for Local Delights – Food Channel & “Taste the Season”
To further enrich the travel experience, Trip.Gourmet has launched a new Food Guide Channel on dual platforms (Trip.com and Ctrip). This feature uncovers local culinary gems, recommending speciality food lists and must-try dishes to travellers. The channel aims to inspire culinary exploration by showcasing the unique flavours of local delicacies in diverse destinations. This complements Trip.com’s Travel Guides feature, which covers not only food, but also entertainment, transportation, accommodation and shopping, as well as useful tools such as tourist maps and routes.
In collaboration with Shangri-La, a new “Taste the Season” campaign was launched, which packages hotel stays, signature dishes and food vouchers. This ties in with the rising popularity of hotel dining, with a mini-drama series produced by Trip.Gourmet launched on social media to support this.
