Although budget was the second most important concern for travellers on their last trip (with good weather the most important), the surveyed tourists said that a destination’s attractions, scenery and culture would all be more significant factors than financial ones when choosing their next holiday.
Travel budgets overall are expected to grow 5% in the future from the €1,822 global average in 2012. Saudi Arabian tourists proved the most extravagant holiday spenders in 2012 with an average of over €5000, followed by Australians at €3,136 and Chinese travellers at €2,910.
41% of the average spend occurs before the trip through bookings and reservations. At the destination itself, 30% of money is spent on retail purchases, 24% on dining, 21% on activities (entertainment, attractions and other services), 9% on accommodation, 7% on local transport and 5% on airfares for short-haul flights.
2012’s most popular destinations were USA (17%), UK and France (both 12%). USA, Japan and UK proved the three most popular potential future destinations overall. However, Singapore also proved a popular destination, with 10% of new or first-time travellers visiting the country in the last two years.
Digital technology and holidays
71% of travellers use digital information sources for planning trips, although only 57% go online for travel information while abroad (unsurprisingly, Facebook is the most popular website when on holiday). TripAdvisor and Expedia are the two most popular travel planning and booking websites globally.
Traditional sources such as guidebooks and tourist information offices remain popular despite the surge in online information, with 61% utilising them both before and during their trip. Just under a third of all travellers, meanwhile, took advantage of planned or package holidays, with the remaining 70% choosing to organise their trip independently.
Of course, for many the final stage of a holiday is sharing the experience online as soon as they’ve arrived home, with 71% of the individuals surveyed having used blogs, social networks, email and other digital sources to tell others about their trip.
The full results can be viewed in Visa’s published Global Travel Intentions study.
