Agoda today announced its findings around holiday booking trends, following analysis of 20 countries. They sought to answer these questions:
- Which nationalities like to stay close to home and which like to go very far?
- Who tends to book at the last minute?
- Who are the most serious forward planners, securing overall better prices and a wider accommodation choice?
From the millions of bookings made on the agoda site in 2016, there are some clear distinctions from market to market in terms of booking habits.
Hong Kongers are, for the second year running, the most organised and book the longest in advance – an average of seven weeks (or 49.4 days) – prior to travel.
Taking second place are the Russians who have moved up two places from fourth position in 2015, with a booking lead-time of 46 days.
TOP 5 FORWARD PLANNERS
Hong Kong
Russia
Australia
Taiwan
United Kingdom
BOTTOM 5 FORWARD PLANNERS
Malaysia
India
Vietnam
Indonesia
Saudi Arabia
Andy Edwards, Global Director Brand and Communications says that there is an average global increase of two days lead-time in booking compared to the previous year.
Overseas versus domestic travel trends
When it comes to booking accommodation overseas, versus domestic travel, Singapore and Hong Kong take the unrivaled joint lead due to country size, with nearly all bookings (99%) being outbound.
The UK takes third place, with 38% of hotel bookings outbound, and 62% booked domestically.
Surprisingly, in the US, just 8% of all hotel bookings support international travel, with 92% supporting domestic travel.
In China, some 98% of the nation’s bookings are placed domestically – demonstrating the massive potential of outbound travel in both these highly populated, powerhouse markets.
The study compared hotel bookings made by agoda travelers from 2015 to 2016.
5