Asian travellers most likely to book hotels online
Asian travellers are the most likely to book a hotel online, a new study has found.
According to Asiarooms.com’s inaugural Traveller Confidence Index (TCI), 70.3% of travellers based in the Asia Pacific region have used the internet to book either leisure or business accommodation – higher than the global average of 63.2%. European travellers (63.2%) were next most likely to book hotels online, followed by those in Latin America (51.6%).
Commissioned by AsiaRooms.com and conducted by market research firm VisionOne UK, the study surveyed about 15,000 travellers worldwide during the first quarter of 2012.
Within Asia, China had the highest proportion of direct online bookings at 57.5% of respondents, followed closely by Singapore at 57.4% and India at 55.0%.
Asian travellers were also the least sensitive to cost with only 29.0% of respondents in Asia citing cost savings as the key determinant influencing their online bookings. This compares to the global average of 34.0%, 30.3% in Latin America, and 39.3% in Europe.
Spending and room booking results also reveal a disparity in confidence mirroring the ongoing economic uncertainty in the European and US markets relative to Asia’s strength. Travellers in Asia lead spending with 65.5 index points versus 62.9 points in Latin America, 53.3 points in Europe, and 49.3 points in the US. Singapore led the Asia Pacific region for overseas leisure travel with a propensity index score of 67.9 points versus Malaysia at 48.3 points, China at 62.8 points, and a global average of 61.4 points.
Travellers from Latin America are the most bullish in terms of expected travel accommodation bookings in 2012, leading all other regions with 66.7 index points. This is followed closely by Asia at 61.4 index points, and Europe trailing a large gap at 55.9 index points. Latin America and Asia are the only two regions to surpass the global average of 60.8 index points.
Latin America also leads in all travel categories surveyed, and specifically in domestic (in-country) and leisure travel propensity at 72.5 and 70.6 index points respectively. In contrast, domestic (in-country) and leisure travel propensity in Asia scored 64.7 and 64.6 index points respectively.
Business travellers from Europe and the US were the most pessimistic in terms of travel propensity with 51.8 and 49.8 index points respectively, against the global average of 57.1 index points. Asia and Latin America were ahead of the mean at 58.1 and 62.8 index points respectively.
Similarly, business travellers from Europe and the US expect to spend the least in 2012, with 53.1 and 49.3 index points respectively, against the global average of 62 points.
The compilation of the above data sets has been nominated from a comprehensive set of supplementary findings taken from the AsiaRooms.com Traveller Confidence Index 2012. The initial release of the findings covers macro-view datasets and regional-specific comparisons. Market or in-country specific datasets will be available in subsequent releases from AsiaRooms.com.