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APAC Traveler Customer Journey
For luxury travelers in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, travel portals are more popular for hotel and accommodation booking because of the various choices available for comparison and the ease of booking.
APAC TRAVELER CUSTOMER JOURNEY
HOTEL SELECTION PROCESS FOR LUXURY TRAVELERS IN THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION
- Travel portals are more popular for hotel and/or accommodation booking because of the various choices available for comparison and the ease of booking.
- The most popular information channels for travel are online search and brand websites.
- Online and social media advertisements are the top 2 influencers when choosing a travel brand.
- 1 in every 4 trips Chinese millionaires take mixes leisure and business.
- Cruises are more often booked through traditional travel agents and travel concierge services.
HOTEL SELECTION CRITERIA FOR LUXURY TRAVELERS IN THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION
- 70% of luxury travelers expect highly customized experiences in purchasing luxury products or services.
- APAC luxury travelers expect luxury brands to offer thoughtful and intelligent services and solutions
- Asian millionaire travelers expect customization as per their needs.
- Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts is the most beloved brand in the Hotels category for Asian Millionaires, followed by Hyatt and JW Marriott.
- With the launch of Airbnb Plus, Airbnb is increasingly seen as an alternative to luxury hotels.
- Chinese luxury travelers seek sustainability, wellness, and family experience.
- Ritz-Carlton is the most popular luxury hotel brand for Chinese luxury travelers.
ADDITIONAL FINDINGS
- Over 40% of APAC travelers say they bounce back and forth between dreaming about and planning their next trip.
- According to Christine Warner, Head of travel at Facebook, on average, 43 days will pass between the decision to travel and the decision on where to go.
- Research conducted by Nielsen for Google found that travelers spent an average of 53 days visiting 28 different websites to plan their vacations.
- Around 24% of the United States' travelers to the APAC region plan for their travel over 90 days in advance.
- Approximately 18% of travels from the United States to APAC locations are already arranged 0 to 7 days prior to the trip.
- Around 25% of travelers within the Asian region book their travel arrangements 0 to 7 days before the actual trip.
- 20% of all the reservations made by the Asians traveling within the APAC region is done 90 days in advance.
RESEARCH STRATEGY
For this research, our research team employed four research strategies as follows.
First, we started our research by directly searching for industry reports and market studies on luxury travelers in the Asia Pacific region. The reports would include information on the customer journey that includes the following details:
- Any differences between leisure and business travelers
- Hotel selection process (how they find and/or learn about hotels)
- Selection criteria
- Booking touchpoints (e.g. when and how bookings are typically made)
- Booking time-frames
The research team came across numerous reports published on luxury, affluent or millionaire travelers in the Asia Pacific region that provided information on the hotel selection process and selection criteria. These reports came from different sources including but not limited to ILTM Asia Pacific, Agility Research, and Luxury Society among others. However, limited information could be found on differences between leisure and business travelers, booking touchpoints, and booking time-frames specific to luxury travelers in the Asia Pacific region.
Since limited regional information could be found on some data points, we started to search for any country-level information about the top luxury travel countries identified in our previous search namely, China, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore among others. The idea here was to find information such as differences between leisure and business travelers, booking touchpoints, and booking time-frames specific to luxury travelers in each of these countries. However, after checking through numerous available reports published by Luxury Conversation and CPP Luxury, limited information could be found on the missing data points. Most information through reports such as the one by Luxury Conversation are behind paywalls and limited insights are made publicly available by the publisher.
Our third strategy involved searching for any statistics or hard data published by hotel booking portals and travel planning websites. The idea here was to find any information on how luxury travelers make use of such sites to travel within the Asia Pacific region. However, most of the information found through this strategy provided worldwide information for all the customers. For instance, the report published by TripAdvisor provides statistics on its overall user base and nothing specific to luxury travelers in the Asia Pacific region.
As a last resort, our fourth strategy involved searching for information on global luxury travelers. The idea here was to find any useful information on the missing data points for the Asia Pacific region. We came across an article published by Luxe Digital that provides information on the booking touchpoints and time-frames for luxury travelers globally.
Further, we also searched for information on all the travelers to the Asia Pacific region and came across an article that provides information on the booking time-frames for all the travelers in the Asia Pacific region.
After exhausting the above-mentioned strategies, our research team concluded that limited information is available on the typical customer journey for luxury travelers in the Asia Pacific region.
WHAT INFORMATION WAS AVAILABLE
- Information on the hotel selection process and criteria for luxury travelers in the Asia Pacific region
- Information on global luxury travelers
- Information on all travelers in the Asia Pacific region
WHAT INFORMATION WAS NOT AVAILABLE
- Booking information specific to luxury travelers in the Asia Pacific region
- Any information on differences between leisure and business travelers
WHY INFORMATION WHICH WAS NOT AVAILABLE PRE-COMPILED, COULDN'T BE TRIANGULATED?
- One of the probable reasons for the unavailability of part of the information needed could be that since hotel booking and travel planning companies publish overall consumer behavior data, no information specific to luxury travelers in the Asia Pacific region is publicly available.
- It could also be possible that the customer journey in terms of booking touchpoints and time-frames for luxury travelers is similar to all the travelers.
Since we were only able to provide limited information on the typical customer journey for luxury travelers in the Asia Pacific region, we have submitted this as a partial client update. The details have been summarized in the findings section.