Plan your next trip on Booking.com, Expedia, Trip.com… or Tiktok?

Air travel has rebounded strongly after being floored by the Covid-19 pandemic in the previous two years. But how people are deciding and booking their trips have changed.

Here’s what executives in the travel industry have observed, as shared in a range of panel sessions at the WiT Singapore 2022 event between Oct 3 and Oct 5. Featured speakers at the event include senior executives from Expedia Group , Booking.com , 携程集团 , Traveloka , 谷歌 and TikTok .

How have travel patterns changed since the pandemic?

Alfan Hendro (Chief Operating Officer, Traveloka )

Traveloka has always been (mostly) domestic in all our markets except for Singapore and Hong Kong. In all other markets, domestic business has always been the vast majority of our businesses. During the pandemic, that has shifted to virtually all domestic. Now we are seeing the international portion start to grow again, but it’s still smaller than pre-pandemic.

What we have seen is that digital penetration has definitely grown a lot more during the pandemic. What we are seeing is that customers are doing and buying everything, including travel, online.

Julie Kyse (Vice President, Global Air Partnerships, Expedia Group )

We are definitely seeing the same trend of domestic traffic coming back a lot sooner. But we really do think of ourselves as a global company… it’s critically important for us to be global as well as the travel patterns are going to change. So even if they are domestic in the beginning, they are just going to continue to evolve as travel is going to (grow) more and more internationally. We are already seeing that in the United States and India and it is going to be happening in Asia-Pacific as recovery continues.?

Chee Teong Ooi (Associate VP, International Flight Business, Trip.com )

Previously, Ctrip.com ( 携程集团 ’s China platform) has a very high number of bookings on mobile; it was at 80% two to three years ago. But for Trip.com, which is for the international market, it started with 40%, increased to 50% and the most recent number has gone up to 68%. So we can see that the mobile adoption through the pandemic has increased.??

What do travellers want moving forward?

Julie Kyse (Vice President, Global Air Partnerships, Expedia Group )

What we are seeing is this massive move on traveller expectations towards wanting flexibility… Historically, we didn't have a big focus on flexibility in the leisure market. People were buying non-refundable fares or fares that have really high change fees associated with them. Now there are more and more (interest) in fare classes that allow for changes… We have issued over a billion dollars in flight credits for re-bookings since the pandemic began, so it's a big, big thing.

I think personalisation will happen sooner. I think that one of the big things that I am most excited about from a technology perspective is the move towards more attributes based-shopping and search, where the travelers can actually indicate what their preferences are. And instead of showing them the cheapest fares and the cheapest room types, you show them the fare in the room types that most closely match their needs.

Matthias Schmid (Acting Senior Vice President, Trips Division, Booking.com )

We know from a recent survey that over 70% of customers plan to travel more sustainably the next 12 months. We think that we have an obligation to make sure that customers are informed. We need to educate them and we need to make sure that we show sustainable travel options in a transparent way.?

Will demand for travel remain high?

Hermione Joye (Sector Lead, Travel & Vertical Search APAC, 谷歌 )

What we have found is the mindset that travel is now the ultimate luxury. Yes, it’s driven in part by the fact that people have been in lockdowns. But it is also really the emergence of the Gen Z traveller, who is a social experience-based audience and they thrive on travel.?

What we also found out from research is that revenge travel is here to stay, at least for the next 12 months, with over 75% of people coming back and saying they plan to travel more in the future.

We also found that people are still willing to spend on travel… they will spend more than they did pre-Covid in the next 12 months on travel. (A Google/ Kantar study has found that 30% to 60% of people in key APAC markets are travelling more and spending more compared to before the pandemic.)

There’s this desire to travel for well-being and to be nature-based. People are turning to travel as an opportunity to relieve stress and to improve their well-being. That, for 48% to 50% of travellers in APAC, is the number one main motivator to travel right now.?

How does videos influence trip choices?

Hermione Joye (Sector Lead, Travel & Vertical Search APAC, 谷歌 )

What we found here is that there is a true desire for people across all ages to be strongly connected. The way they view the content is more personal than ever. Our research came back and told us that over 98% of travelers in APAC, use digital in some form of their journey. And actually in markets like India, 100% came back and said that they use digital, whether it's to plan or research. Across the board, the numbers are incredibly high. But more importantly, what we saw was the role of video in this journey, with 56% of people saying that they need a video touch point when they were researching to make their decision on a travel destination.

Is TikTokfication happening in travel as well?

Tejveer Singh Bedi (Head of Travel, SEA, TikTok)

We have seen great consumption of travel content on TikTok. People want to take the trip on TikTok before they decide whether to book the trip. This kind of content is being brought to us by creators in the travel industry, there is a massive creator economy in place.

We see very mature brands participating on TikTok, even on hashtag challenges. So everyone wants to have fun across generations…We have creators who specialise in travel tips like saving money. These are extremely engaging content for the travellers and we see a huge adoption of this type of content.??