A survey of top travel searches on Yahoo! this summer, shows Indians seeking our affordable and economical options. What they would call ‘paisa vasool’ or money worth. However India does not figure amon the top destinations in India. That distinction goes to Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. Indian travelers enquired details about various famous festivals and the places that celebrated them in a big way so as to coincide their trips to these places accordingly. A lot of users also compared South India v/s North India to help them decide which part they wanted to visit. Users were equally cautious when it came to spending money and searched increasingly about affordable deals around air fares, hotel fares and travel packages. For international destinations, travellers wanted to make sure they planned well especially when it came to travel documents. They enquired in detail regarding visa details, passport related issues and other travel related documents.
Prem Panicker, Managing Editor, Yahoo! India said, “The recovery of the global economy continues, and this in turn has stimulated interest in travel. The volume of key word searches consolidated by Yahoo! APAC has increased by 121% on average, and we see this as a clear indicator that the travel sector has rebounded from its recession-driven slump."
Yahoo!, has aggregated searches from all over APAC (includes India, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia) to reveal the most popular destinations among APAC.
According to collated statistics from travel searches in APAC, Singapore is the most popular destination among Southeast Asian online users such as India, Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Taiwan is the most desirable destination for online users in Singapore and Hong Kong while Japan is also a highly popular destination for users in India and Malaysia. In addition to the top five destinations, Korea searches also resulted a spike of 625% in Europe indicating local user’s interests compared to April 2010, while Taiwan showed interests in Thailand with 148.57% increase and SEA and India users are more willing to travel within APAC region.
Accommodation is an important factor for travellers when planning their itinerary. From the collated hotel-related searches, online users’ travel preferences in the different Asian countries were reflected very clearly. India travellers preferred more affordable and economical options, South Korean travellers like boutique hotels while Taiwan and Hong Kong travellers prefer international hotel chains.
June 12 2011