GfK finds Singapore travellers often plan less than a month ahead

A Jetstar plane at Changi Airport, Singapore.

Businesses could save money on some travel costs by taking a leaf out of consumer travel books. A GfK study has revealed that around 76% of trips from Singapore have been made by travellers no more than a month ahead of the actual travel date.

“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. “Such promotions are often quickly snapped up by holiday-seekers, especially those who are familiar with the destinations for free and easy leisure travel for weekends or during public holidays.”

GfK also found that 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%). One third of respondents relied solely on Internet research, but 17% shared that they only utilise offline methods. Half of all respondents use both methods.

“Traditional brick-and-mortar travel agents remain popular for travel packages to other regions apart from Asia and Europe, as confirmed by a small group of less than a third of respondents,” said van den Oever. “Our findings showed that consumers are more inclined to receiving assistance for their bookings and planning from the agencies when traveling to unfamiliar regions as this provides some level of assurance.”

*The GfK Consumer Travel Tracker research was conducted in Singapore over April and May, and is based on tracked outbound travel data from the pre-booking to actual booking and transaction stages, conducted among 500 respondents who have made a travel booking in the last three months.