Yahoo! reveals the top searches related to travel destination

With the recovering global economy and nearing of the summer travel season, consumers are now starting to search and plan their travels for the next three months! In an attempt to find out the top travel preferences, Yahoo!, the premier digital media company, has meticulously aggregated searches from all over APAC (includes India, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia) to reveal the most popular destinations among APAC in April. Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan are the top five summer travel destinations for APAC users based on search query and ranking frequency!

According to collated statistics from travel searches in APAC, Singapore is the most popular destination among Southeast Asian online users such as India, Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Taiwan is the most desirable destination for online users in Singapore and Hong Kong while Japan is also a highly popular destination for users in India and Malaysia. In addition to the top five destinations, Korea searches also resulted a spike of 625% in Europe indicating local user's interests compared to April 2010, while Taiwan showed interests in Thailand with 148.57% increase and SEA and India users are more willing to travel within APAC region.

Planning for accommodation is also an important factor for travelers when planning their itinerary. From the collated hotel-related searches, online users' travel preferences in the different Asian countries were reflected very clearly. India and Southeast Asian travelers preferred more affordable and economical options, South Korean travelers like boutique hotels while Taiwan and Hong Kong travelers prefer international hotel chains.

When it came to India, travelers enquired details about various famous festivals and the places that celebrated them in a big way so as to coincide their trips to these places accordingly. A lot of users also compared South India v/s North India to help them decide which part they wanted to visit. Users were equally cautious when it came to spending money and searched increasingly about affordable deals around air fares, hotel fares and travel packages. For international destinations, travelers wanted to make sure they planned well especially when it came to travel documents. They enquired in detail regarding visa details, passport related issues and other travel related documents.

Prem Panicker, Managing Editor, Yahoo! India said, "The recovery of the global economy continues, and this in turn has stimulated interest in travel. The volume of key word searches consolidated by Yahoo! APAC has increased by 121% on average, and we see this as a clear indicator that the travel sector has rebounded from its recession-driven slump."

In order to discover users' attitude towards travel planning, Yahoo! also revealed the results from its online travel survey done in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea. The results showed that Hong Kong travelers love a good time; South Korean travelers have very different spending habits and Taiwanese travelers are the most careful planners. Yahoo! also discovered that online users prefer self-plan travel styles. More than 50% of Taiwanese and Hong Kong online users depend heavily on the Internet to search travel-related content.

According to the survey results, travel budgets remain constant among travelers in the three countries. Users are willing to spend up to 10% of their annual salaries. However more than 30% of South Korean users have expressed that they are willing to pay 20-30% of their annual salaries to travel, indicating that they have opposite travel expenditure habits.

The survey also revealed that the most frequent travelers are from Hong Kong where approximately 60% travel 1 or 2 times every year. Travelers from Taiwan and South Korea travel once every one to three years. As for travel destinations, Taiwanese travelers are the most careful planners and are very mindful about local living standards as compared to travelers from Hong Kong and South Korea.

What are the must-try food and souvenirs items in these countries when traveling? As to what local delicacies online users recommend to foreign tourists, Hong Kong users recommend Hong Kong Dim Sums, South Korea users recommend South Korean BBQ meats and Taiwanese users recommend bubble milk tea.

As for the souvenirs, Hong Kong users recommend the famous Chinese-style pastries; South Korean users recommend Ginseng Health Products and Taiwanese users recommend pineapple cakes. Pineapple cakes are very popular among tourists for its tangy, fruity flavor and pineapple also symbolizes good luck. It is not surprising that more than 100 million pineapple ckaes are sold each year in Taiwan, evidencing that they are very popular gifts!

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