MasterCard Study Reveals Optimism in SEA; Myanmar Consumers Most Confident

According to the latest MasterCard Consumer Purchasing Priorities survey, 80% of Southeast Asian travelers who went overseas last year, plan to holiday abroad the same or more this year.

In Southeast Asia, Singapore residents display the most desire to travel internationally in the next 12 months, with 87% of respondents intending to travel the same or more. This is followed by Malaysia (84%) and Myanmar (80%).

Singapore has emerged as a hot favorite amongst Southeast Asian travelers, with survey respondents consistently listing the island republic within their top three most-desired destinations globally for 2015.

Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam ranked Singapore as the top global destination for travel, favoring the neighboring country over farther choice locations such as London, Paris and Tokyo.

When asked to choose a destination in the APMEA region (Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa) for an all-expenses paid holiday, the Lion City, emerged once again as the top choice for many markets.

People from Malaysia prefer to visit Dubai, while Singapore and Thailand holiday makers want to visit Tokyo.

Top Destination for All-Expenses Paid Holiday

The top international travel spenders from Southeast Asia in 2014 came from Thailand (THB 68,388 or approximately US$ 2,100), followed closely by Singapore respondents (SG$ 2,272 or approximately US$ 1,800) and Myanmar (MMK 1,802,667 or approximately US$ 1,750).

The most travelled people hailed from Singapore, with 82% having travelled internationally in the past 12 months followed by Malaysia at 67% and Thailand at 65%.

The strong travel appetite of respondents coincided with an upbeat consumer outlook. Overall consumer sentiment in the Southeast Asia region stood at 77.7 index points, rising moderately by 6.4 index points compared to last year, according to the MasterCard Index of Consumer Confidence.

All seven Southeast Asia markets surveyed reported optimistic sentiments with the exception of Malaysia, which maintained a neutral outlook of 49.9 index points.

“In the last few years, the region’s economies have been rapidly developing and optimism is generally high in Southeast Asia with the exception of Malaysia, which has a neutral outlook. In tandem with economic progress, we are seeing a steady rise in the middle class with a higher disposable income which allows people to venture overseas more often for leisure travel. 2015 is critical for the Southeast Asian region because of ASEAN’s goal to establish the ASEAN Economic Community by year-end and we are looking forward to seeing how the region progresses,” said Matthew Driver, president of Southeast Asia, MasterCard.

Topping the Index once again as the most optimistic market in Southeast Asia, is Myanmar. In fact, Myanmar consumers are now even more optimistic than last year and have recorded a near-perfect score of 97.2 index points, with 100 being the maximum possible.

Since being included in the biannual survey from 2013 onwards, Myanmar has consistently scored strongly on all five outlook indicators of consumer confidence – employment, economy, income prospects, stock market and quality of life. Myanmar has also set the Southeast Asia record for having the most buoyant sentiments in the last ten years, edging out Vietnam who scored 94.3 index points in 2007.

In ranking order, Myanmar is followed by Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia.

MasterCard Consumer Confidence Index

MasterCard Study Methodology

2,865 respondents aged 18 – 64 in seven Southeast Asia countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) took part in the survey conducted from October to November 2014.

Data was collected through a mixture of online questionnaires, face-to-face interviews and computer-assisted phone interviews.

Respondents were asked questions about their travel priorities, as part of MasterCard’s suite of research into Consumer Purchasing Priorities in the Asia Pacific region.

For the MasterCard Index of Consumer Confidence, respondents were asked to give a six-month outlook on five economic factors including the economy, employment prospects, regular income prospects, and their quality of life.

The results of their responses were converted in five component indexes which were subsequently averaged to form the MasterCard Index of Consumer Confidence (MICC) score.

The MICC Index score and the 5 component index scores range from 0 – 100 where 0 represents maximum pessimism, 100 represents maximum optimism and 50 represents neutrality.