TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan, Thailand, and increasingly, Vietnam are showing the strongest recovery in the travel sector as most of the rest of the world continues to suffer under the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to online travel platform Agoda.

Travel is recovering faster in Asia than in the West, but most of it is domestic and in countries where “they really have the best control over COVID,” John Brown, chief executive of the Booking Holdings subsidiary, told CNBC.

While many Asian countries still have international travel bans — or at least tough restrictions — in place, their domestic travel businesses have been doing even better than the previous year, Brown said.

The Agoda executive pinned his hopes on the launch of travel bubbles, even though the highest-profile example, between Singapore and Hong Kong, was postponed for two weeks due to a surge in infections in the latter.

Despite the delay, Brown still expected the project to be a success and inspire other cities and countries to introduce similar links.