AsiaRooms Unveils Results from Global Traveller Confidence Index 2013

Of over 25 countries recently surveyed, results show that travellers from Singapore lead in online accommodation bookings in the past 12 months

This headlined the results of the research on global travel trends by AsiaRooms – an online travel accommodation site based in Asia, and offering rooms in over 60,000 properties worldwide.

Now in its second year running, the AsiaRooms Traveller Confidence Index (TCI) tracks leading indicators for travel propensity, spending confidence, and regional momentum to provide insights into the travel trends of both consumers and businesses from a demand perspective.

Commissioned by AsiaRooms and in partnership with independent market research firm VisionOne UK, these findings are based on the responses of over 12,000 online participants in over 25 major international markets, spanning Asia Pacific, America and Europe.

Clarence Lin, Brand Development Lead, AsiaRooms, said, “This year’s index reveals continuing appetite for overseas travel and growing popularity of online accommodation bookings, especially in Asia.”

This year’s index revealed the following interesting global travel trends:

Travel and Spending Patterns

In the past 12 months, travellers in Asia proved most inclined to book their business and leisure trips online, with 75.2% of respondents making online bookings this year compared to the global average of 65.4%. This is a 4.9% increase from last year’s index and is slightly more than double the global average increase of 2.3%.

Singapore travellers topped the list with 84.3% of respondents having made an online booking in the past 12 months.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Latin American region reflected a 2.8% decrease in online bookings, with only 48.8% of respondents having booked online in the past 12 months.

Travellers Less Price-Sensitive

Respondents are still generally prudent with their purse strings, with 57.7% of them stating affordability as a primary cause for lower accommodation usage in the next 12 months. However, price is less of a factor in influencing accommodation decisions this year - there is a 9.4% decrease in price sensitivity compared to the last index.

Additionally, compared to the last index, there was a 9.1% decrease in number of respondents who stated that the global economic situation would be a primary cause for lower accommodation usage in the next 12 months.

The most significant change in price sensitivity is reflected in Asia, with 17.5% lesser number of respondents stating cost-savings as a primary cause for lower accommodation usage in the next 12 months. 31.5% of them stated that future accommodation usage would be affected by the general economic situation; this is an 18.4% drop from last year and is also lower than the global average of 34.2%.

Leisure Travel

Approximately 60% of men and women who booked accommodations online in the last 12 months went overseas for leisure.

However, greater disparity between the genders for overseas leisure travel is reflected among regions. In Europe, US and Latin America, men travelled overseas for leisure more than their female counterparts, at 2.8% more and 1% more respectively.

On the other hand, women in the Asia Pacific buck the global trend with 53% of women having travelled for leisure overseas compared to just 51% of men in the last 12 months.

Search and Booking Patterns

Globally, 29% of all respondents indicated that they prefer to pay for their accommodation only during check-out as opposed to paying a basic room rate in advance (24%) or paying an advance deposit (23%).

Worldwide, the preferred mode of payment by majority of travellers is by credit/charge card (70%) followed by debit card (37%).

Social Media and Mobile Travel

A majority of travellers (75%) are active on an average of one to three social media platforms, visiting these sites between one to three times daily.

Around the world, people are becoming increasingly influenced by social media for their travel decisions. Nearly half (53.4%) of all respondents indicated that people within their social media circles influenced their decisions on online accommodation usage; more than a quarter (28.2%) also shared that even strangers on social media sites managed to influence their travel-related decisions.

On average, more than half (58%) of the respondents in this year’s index indicated that they own a mobile phone with both Wi-Fi capabilities and mobile data plan subscriptions.

The number of people who own tablets with Wi-Fi and data subscription plans also jumped to 27%, up by 8% from last year, driven mainly by the increase in Asia.

This increase in ease of connectivity has led to a surge in volume for travel-related searches and purchases with almost half (46%) of the respondents from this index searching for their travel accommodations with mobile devices. This is a 9% increase from the last index.

Respondents from Asia were most at ease with using their mobile devices for their travel accommodation needs, with 59% of them using their devices to search for travel accommodations online in the past 12 months, compared to the global average of 46%. Respondents from Asia also showed the highest propensity to make a travel-related transaction online.

The usage of mobile devices for travel-related decision-making is set to increase as more than half (53%) of respondents have indicated a likelihood of using these devices in the future.

In addition to the key global findings, there are also several Singapore-specific findings from this year’s index that are note-worthy:

- Singapore travellers stayed more nights overseas and spent more per night on accommodation in the 12 past months as compared to the global and regional average. Respondents in Singapore spent an average of US$132, beating the global and regional average of US$ 115 and US$ 122 per night respectively.

- Singapore travellers stayed an average of 7.2 nights overseas in the past 12 months for business - higher than the global and regional average of 6.5 and 6.3 nights respectively, and spent US$23 more per night than the global average of US$ 120. In comparison, US business travellers stayed double the number of nights overseas for business (15.6 nights) but their business accommodation spend per night was lower at US$111.

- For leisure, Singapore travellers stayed an average of 7.5 nights overseas – lower compared to the global average of 8.6 but higher than the regional average of 7.0 nights. However, their leisure accommodation spent per night (US$120) was higher than the global and regional average at US$110 and US$119 respectively.

Singaporeans

In comparing the amount of overseas travel in the past 12 months by gender, women in Singapore are seen to be more frequent travellers than many of their global counterparts.

Nearly a third (30.8%) of women in Singapore travelled overseas for business compared to the global and Asia Pacific average (23% and 28% respectively). They travelled twice as much as their counterparts from the Americas (Latin America and the USA) and also Europe at 15.3% and 14.8% respectively.

Significantly more women in Singapore (96.2%) travelled overseas for leisure as opposed to the global average of 60.2%. Women in Europe trail right behind their Singapore counterparts at 68.8%. Over half of all the respondents (59%) said that they took 4-14 nights overseas for leisure in the past 12 months.

Men in Singapore also led global and Asia Pacific average in terms of overseas leisure travel in the past 12 months at 96.1% (compared to 59% and 60.1% respectively). However, they lagged behind in terms of overseas business travel (50.3%) when compared to their counterparts from the Americas (52.7%).

Even though women in Singapore are ahead of their global peers when it comes to their propensity for overseas business travel (30.8%) in the last 12 months, they still lag behind their male counterparts (50.3%). This gender disparity in Singapore is significant as this 19.5% difference is twice that of Asia Pacific’s gender disparity average (8.9%).