Inaugural Global Industry Survey Highlights Major Growth in Asia Pacific Region
Asia has emerged as a luxury travel powerhouse as consumer confidence increases and the spending power of the Asian elite reaches new heights.
This finding is based on a new initiative that was launched by ALTM (Asia Luxury Travel Market) at this year’s event in Shanghai. The results of a unique trends survey that was carried out in a joint collaboration between ALTM and TTG Asia over a period of 2 months in the first quarter of 2010 were announced at the pre-show conference. Through highly targeted regional and global luxury planner and supplier databases, the survey sought to help clarify how businesses may have changed during the fluctuation in economic conditions and how they have bounced back in recent months.
The survey highlighted preferred destinations, frequency of travel, annual spending, domestic versus international and the buyer/supplier relationship. It also showed the affect of the last year on the choices of high net worth individuals (their clients) when planning their leisure time, how the industry might react to potential influences of change, whether “luxury travel brands” are well placed to entice the region’s wealthy and what these trends could reveal about the habits of this elite group of travellers in the future.
The results of this survey show how the vast majority of luxury travel professionals throughout the region has already seen an increase in business in 2010 and almost all of them expect a significant increase in the luxury travel market in Asia.
Luxury travel buyers and agents have seen considerable improvements in their business this year, with 94% of them expecting an increase in luxury travel within the Asia Pacific region, particularly to China, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.
Luxury travel operators and suppliers have also seen considerable improvements this year, with 60% experiencing an increase in luxury bookings in Q1 of this year. Furthermore, 88% expect the Asia Pacific luxury travel market to grow significantly within the next 12 months.
Travel trends seem to be changing as well, with travellers putting more emphasis on unique destinations and bespoke experience and the majority of operators growing and changing their offerings to cater to this need.
The results also set the scene at the first ALTM Ultratravel Forum – a unique debate on the topic: “Is China/Asia-Pacific set to become the world’s largest market for luxury travel?” that opened this year’s show.
Some of the major key findings from the survey results include:
Luxury Travel Suppliers:
· 60% of operators have grown/changed their product from last year
· 70% of operators will reinvest in their product in 2010
· 88% of operators expect the Asia-Pacific luxury travel market to grow significantly within the next 12 months to most significantly in markets including China, Hong Kong, Japan, India, Singapore and Thailand
· 59% of operators have seen an increase in luxury bookings in Q1 of 2010
Luxury Travel Planners:
· 93% of agents expect an increase in their business for 2010, in particular to the following markets: Asia, Western Europe/Mediterranean, and Australasia
· 94% of agents expect an increase in luxury travel within Asia citing China, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand as the most significant markets
· 71% of agents have noticed a recovery in their business in recent months
· The key factors that agents deem most important when considering a luxury travel product are unique offerings, reliability, privacy, price point and security
· The most popular global luxury travel destinations for their customers are Asia, Western Europe/Mediterranean and Australasia
· Out of Asia, the most popular destinations are Thailand, China, Hong Kong and Australia followed by Japan, Singapore and Malaysia
For more information on this year’s show and the full set of results, please visit: www.altm.com.cn
