Holiday super rush: 75% of Singaporeans take less than a month to book trips

Yuppie vacationers snap up bargain airline offers.

It seems that Singaporeans don’t need much planning time to travel. A recently released study by Gfk revealed that 76 percent of outbound air trips have been made by travelers no more than a month ahead of the actual travel date.

45% of these short-term planners are aged from 26-35 years old. The main destinations for these travellers are Malaysia (41%), Thailand (27%), and Indonesia (22%).

Only around 10% of travelers in the country can be categorized as long-term planners, or those who plan and book their trips over a period of more than six months. The remaining 14 percent are mid-term planners, or those who spend 2-6 months preparing for their trip.

““The high incidence of trips being booked within a few weeks of travel is likely due to the availability of discounted airfare for last minute flights by airlines, which are increasingly common nowadays,” observed Laurens van den Oever, Global Travel Director at GfK.

Here’s more from GfK:

The GfK Consumer Travel Tracker research was conducted in Singapore in April – May 2014. The study is based on tracked outbound travel data from the pre-booking to actual booking and transaction stage and conducted among 500 respondents who have made a travel booking in the last 3 months.

In the highly connected Singapore society, it is not surprising that the internet is the most sought after platform to gather required information. Four in five (80%) do their travel research online while the next popular method is by talking to personal contacts such as friends, relatives and colleagues (40%). Other less common mentions are travel agency (20%), travel fair (20%) and articles in newspapers (20%).

The survey also asked travelers about their chosen destinations and duration of stay. South East Asia is the favorite travel region with Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia being the top choices, followed by Greater China.

“The preference for these SEA countries is likely because of their position amongst the major nations in ASEAN,” commented van den Oever. “However, as these destinations become overly familiar in the future, it is highly possible that Singaporeans may turn to others such as Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia for new experiences,” he concluded.

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