Space travel looks set to remain the final undiscovered frontier as price concerns are turning holidaymakers off from becoming space tourists, reveals a survey by leading business-to-business travel and tourism event World Travel Market.
Despite the great strides in space tourism being made by a number of travel companies, including Virgin Galactic which last week unveiled its SpaceShipTwo spacecraft which will take its maiden commercial space voyage in 2011, half of the 1,030 people polled said they are not interested in holidaying in space.
A further 23% only said they might be interested, leaving a mere 27% who said they were interested in travelling into space.
Almost three quarters (74%) of those polled – all of whom took a summer holiday in 2009 – said they feared space travel would remain too expensive and exclusively for the super rich, such as Canadian multi-millionaire Guy Laliberte who paid US$35 million for a 12-day trip into space in October.
Virgin Galactic’s first flight is priced at £122,000 for the two-hour flight from New Mexico, 300 people have already paid in full while a further 82,000 have registered their interest. Test mission on the SpaceShipTwo, which can host six passengers and two pilots, are expected to start next year.
Virgin Galactic expects to spend more than $400 million for a fleet of five commercial spaceships and launch vehicles.
Reports also claim the company has approached the UK Government about establishing a base in Scotland. Despite this only 4% of respondents believe space travel will evolve into an affordable mass-market travel product in the next 30 years.
World Travel Market Chairman Fiona Jeffery said: “After countless false dawns, space travel will be a reality. It is not a question of if, it’s just a matter of time and money – but it’s definitely coming.
“It’s disappointing holidaymakers fear they will be priced out of becoming space tourists. However, I’m confident the price will drop dramatically the more space tourism takes off.”
Northern Irish Most Interested in Space Travel
Young males living in Northern Ireland are the most interested in travelling into space.
Northern Ireland is the only region in the UK which has complete faith in space travel becoming an available tourism product in the next 30 years.
A quarter (25%) of people from Northern Ireland believe space travel will become a mass market product – by far the highest percentage of any region and way above the UK figure of 4%. With the remaining 75% believing it will be available for the super rich – making it the only region to have no doubts over the future of space travel.
Of the 27% of respondents who said they would be interested in space travel, the majority were from the 16 – 24 and 25 – 40 year old age groups, with 40% and 39% respectively stating their interest in space travel.
More than one third (35%) of men said they want to travel in to space, compared to only 18% of women.
“The confidence of the Northern Irish in space tourism is refreshing to see. The world has been interested in space tourism since Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969, and it now appears to be within touching distance,” Jeffery added.
East Anglians Least Insterested in Going in to Space
People from East Anglia were least interested in space travel with almost two thirds of respondents from the region stating they are not interested in becoming a space tourist.
Furthermore, a massive 28% – the highest percentage of any region – said they didn’t believe space travel would be available in the next 30 years. 68% felt space travel would only be available for the super rich.
The research, carried out by Fusion Communications on behalf of World Travel Market interviewed 1,030 people who took a summer holiday in 2009.
World Travel Market, the premier global event for the travel industry, took place between Monday November 9 and Thursday 12 November. Almost 46,000 travel industry professionals took part in World Travel Market at ExCeL – London.
