by Kayak.sg
Most people first experience travel as a holiday with family or friends. A long or short haul destination was not important. What mattered most was that this first vacation allowed you to see the world from a different perspective.
After getting a taste of international culture, you become more ambitious, you want more. With each trip, you want to go further and stay longer. Before you know it, you are always on the go. Has checking flight deals before bedtime become a nightly habit? If so, you might already be a full-blown travel addict. But don’t worry, you are definitely not alone. In fact, 38% of Singaporean travellers are right there with you.
In efforts to discover what triggers people to travel, KAYAK (KAYAK.sg), the world’s leading travel search engine, released the KAYAK “Travel Addicts” Survey today. The survey questioned 2,100 respondents across the Asia Pacific Region*, between ages 21 to 45. Its purpose was to take a deeper look into travellers’ behaviours to see just how addicted they are to travelling.
Amy Wei, Senior Director, APAC of KAYAK says: “As a leading travel search engine, we have millions of data points on what travellers are searching for, and we can analyse this data to see how price changes affect travellers’ search habits. However, we also want to find out more about travellers’ overall travel-related behaviours. Not only will this help us to map our data with their behaviours, but we hope that by releasing the findings of this survey, we will also help travellers understand more about themselves.”
What are the most important considerations for travel?
When asked about the most important factors when planning a trip, Singaporean travellers saw cost (56%) and a safe environment (56%) as the most important elements. Hong Kong (44%) and Taiwan (52%) travellers, on the other hand, were more likely to see a good travel companion as the most important factor, even more so than financial concerns (37%).
Travel booking – anytime, anywhere?
Survey results show that 40% of APAC travellers are likely to book their trips online using their phones right before going to bed. India ranked highest (46%) in this regard, followed by Hong Kong (44%) and South Korea (43%), with 38% of Singaporeans also engaging in bedtime travel booking. 31% of Singaporean travellers have searched or even booked their next trips when they are still on the road. Whilst these behaviours may seem normal to many travel planners there are those who have tried booking in even more interesting places – for example, 32% of Singaporean travellers have booked a trip during their commute on public transport, while 18% even admitted to having made a booking while in the toilet, truly making good use of their “free time”.
Interestingly, booking a trip while working in the office is popular not only in Singapore (38%), but also in India (45%) and Hong Kong (48%), but not as much in Japan (18%). 4% of Singaporean respondents also said that that have booked a trip online when drunk, while 11% admitted to booking a trip while listening to a boring lecture in class.
Are Singaporeans expert deal-finders, or do they simply have trouble making decisions?
In order to find the best deal for their trip, 49% of Singaporean travellers would open multiple browsers and websites to compare for the cheapest price, with 53% even opening 4 or more websites for comparison. Such ardent deal-hunting seems to be the norm in Asia Pacific, with a regional average of 49% of travellers happy to spend the time checking 4 or more sites to make sure they find the best bargain.
On the other hand, some booking strategies are too far-fetched even for the deal-finders in Singapore. For example, deadline-fighting, where a traveller books several hotels with free cancellation policies with a plan to cancel all but the cheapest at the last minute, is only practised by 19% of Singaporeans, while 31% of Hong Kong travellers say they have tried out the tactic. The results also show that up to 31% of Singaporean travellers have gone as far as cancelling and rebooking the same hotel on the same site when a cheaper price appeared.
Travel to gain followers or unplug for a social media detox?
For many of us, wherever we go, our online presence is right there with us – sharing our amazing meals, views and activities. Amongst APAC travellers, Indians post the most – both during and after a trip, with an average of 10 posts per trip, twice as many as Singaporean travellers. Holidaymakers from Hong Kong and Japan post the least, an average of 4 posts. On the flip side, 24% of Australian respondents noted that they wouldn’t post a single picture on social media, preferring to completely shut themselves off from the virtual world when travelling.
After posting to their feed, 38% of Indian travellers say they would check their social media posts at least every few hours, to keep track of “likes”, whereas people from Singapore (38%), Hong Kong (44%), and Australia (34%) were more likely to check in only once or twice a day.
Wei added, “We see that people aren’t just physically travelling more, they are also thinking about travel more often. Travel searching and booking behaviours can take place literally anywhere and at any moment. At KAYAK, we provide a one-stop seamless travel experience all in one app from planning all the way to itinerary management. Travel no longer requires months of planning – it just takes a few clicks now to take our travel plans from ideas to reality.
