Google had added a "popular destinations" search related carousel to the search results for some queries. Valentin Pletzer spotted this the other day and I can see it as well on both mobile and desktop search.
You can replicate it yourself for queries like [japanese tourism] or [chinese tourism] and so on.
Here are some screenshots:
When you click on any of those results in the carousel, you are taken directly into the Google Travel vertical of search results. Google Travel had popular destinations for many years.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
