Young Asians lead online travel revolution
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Asian visitors to travel websites tend to be younger than their counterparts in Europe and North America, according to new survey. While customers from the Asia Pacific region accounted for just 26% of traffic to global online travel sites in 2010, compared with 27% from North America and 36% from Europe, more than half Asian visitors are under the age of 34. Considering that Asia Pacific accounts for 41% of total global internet users, it appears clear that the Asian market will eventually come to dominate the global online travel market.
This was just one of the findings from a study undertaken by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and digital marketing intelligence company, comScore Inc. The study, released today, also found that while visitors from Europe and North America still see have the highest visitation rates to airline sites, two-thirds of the fastest-growing markets are in Asia. This is led by China, which saw 6.8 million (+147%) more airline website visits last year than in 2009. Strong double-digit growth in this category was also seen in Vietnam (+86%), Hong Kong (+66%), Indonesia (+55%) and India (+52%).
In the Asia Pacific region, low-cost carriers (LCCs) have posted significant growth over the past year. AirAsia added 1.2 million (+51%) more visitors to its website in the past year to maintain its lead as the top-visited LCC site in the Asia Pacific region. Tiger Airways meanwhile, tripled its online traffic to reach 1.8 million visitors (+226%), while Malaysia’s Firefly and India’s IndiGo posted growth of 89% and 70% respectively.
Most of Asia Pacific’s LCCs have audiences that are substantially younger than their international counterparts. For example, 55% of AirAsia’s customers are under 34, while at Tiger Airways this figure rises to 59%, and at Cebu Pacific to 60%. In India, the percentage of young online customers is younger still. Both IndiGo and SpiceJet’s websites attract 72% of visitros under 34. By contrast, the percentage of under 34s using the websites of North America’s two largest LCCs – Southwest Airlines and JetBlue – is just 31% and 35% respectively. In Europe, the figure is only slightly higher, with easyJet receiving only 41% of online visits from under 34s, and Ryanair 46%.
With many of Asia’s LCCs adopting highly web-centric models, it is significant that they attract more than their fair share of the young internet users in the region. For these young travellers, LCCs may be the first time that they have to book and buy their own travel. The younger generation are also likely to influence the older internet users to adopt the web as a channel for researching and booking travel.
John Koldowski, PATA’s Deputy CEO and head of the Office of Strategy Management, said; “PATA sees low cost carriers as an increasingly important part of the travel ecosystem in the Asia Pacific, and this study has proven that. As consumers across demographic segments continue to turn to the web for their travel needs, it is important for brands – hotels, airlines, travel agents and even tourism boards – to develop a strategic online strategy to succeed in this increasingly competitive market.”
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