Asia bucks the global trend of fewer travellers planning to visit major US cities this Spring.
Singapore – Sojern, the world’s leading performance marketing platform for travel brands, released its Q2 Global Travel Insights report, based on travel intent data from 350 million traveller profiles and billions of travel intent signals, including search and booking data from online and mobile channels. Sojern’s latest report examines search trends for the beginning of summer, revealing a trend for travellers in Asia Pacific to branch out to North American and European destinations, compared to more local and regional ones previously.
Spring Travel in Asia-Pacific: Honolulu, Rome Rise as Destinations This quarter, Honolulu makes an appearance in the most searched beach destinations for Asian travellers, while Singapore moves out of the same top five.
Asia-Pacific: Beach Destinations
Q1 2017 | Q2 2017 |
Singapore | Denpasar |
Denpasar | Melbourne |
Sydney | Phuket |
Melbourne | Barcelona |
Barcelona | Honolulu |
Comparing top Metropolitan destinations searched for travel in Q1 versus Q2, Seoul dropped out of the top five, replaced by Bangkok, and Bangkok, Auckland and Nagoya were edged out from the Sightseeing/Recreational top five by Okinawa, Rome and Melbourne.
Asia-Pacific: Metropolitan Destinations
Q1 2017 | Q2 2017 |
Tokyo | London |
Singapore | Bangkok |
Seoul | Singapore |
Taipei | Tokyo |
London | Paris |
Asia-Pacific: Sightseeing/Recreational Destinations
Q1 2017 | Q2 2017 |
Osaka | Osaka |
Bangkok | Okinawa |
Sydney | Rome |
Auckland | Sydney |
Nagoya | Melbourne |
Long Weekends for Hari Raya Puasa
Hari Raya Puasa marks the end of Ramadan and celebrations start on June 25 2017. With June 23 2017 making the list of top departure dates, it is clear that Asia-Pacific travellers are looking to take a long weekend to celebrate.
What’s more this quarter, destinations like Phuket and Honolulu make the list of top beach destinations searched, demonstrating that early planners are open to new destinations as long as they offer what they are looking for, like a beach getaway.
Asian travel marketers know now that travellers are trying to decide just how long a long weekend they will take—with both the Thursday and Friday before Eid al-Fitr on the top departure dates list. This presents a prime opportunity to engage new customers and Sojern recommends targeting them with a combination of upper-funnel brand messaging to introduce them to your brand and mid-funnel engagement campaigns to nurture them through the funnel.
Photo caption: Singapore
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.