SINGAPORE, 27 March 2024: Global travel leader Skyscanner released its latest Horizons report last week, highlighting insights into booking windows, destination choices, and trending destinations across the APAC regions.
The analysis is based on Skyscanner’s proprietary forward-looking Travel Insight data, comparing traveller behaviour and search trends year-on-year.
Booking windows
Across the board, travellers are planning further ahead than the previous year, marking a return to traditional seasonality in 2024. Compared to other regions, APAC travellers have a greater distribution of booking windows but an overall increase in bookings over 30 days (including a 2% jump in the 90+ day segment). Booking windows of two months or more now represent over a third of demand in this region.
Destination choices
APAC travellers are focusing on intra-regional destinations, with a notable decrease in trips to Europe compared to last year. Seat capacity is returning to the region, and many travellers want to swap long-haul trips with short or medium trips or even domestic trips with an eye on their budget to help keep costs down.
Shorter trips
Across all regions, average trip lengths are slightly down or flat year-on-year for many popular destinations. Well-known European and US destinations are the most popular, with Athens experiencing the biggest increase in trip length. “Everywhere” also ranks highly, and Tokyo is the only destination with a single-digit trip length.
Trending destinations
Destinations with the biggest year-on-year increases in search volumes reflect a mix of wanting to explore new places and those with new route connections. New Delhi, India and Shanghai, China, are experiencing the biggest growth amongst APAC travellers, while Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Dubrovnik, Croatia; and Victoria, Canada, are also trending. Pangkalan Bun in Borneo, Indonesia, is the only trending destination with an increase in average trip length.
Skyscanner head of destination partnerships Zeynep Mutlu Bigalı commented: “Our latest Horizon insights reveal a travel landscape that is both familiar and evolving. While traditional seasonality is returning and popular destinations remain in demand, travellers seek value and explore options closer to home. Across Skyscanner’s platforms, we have seen incredible demand at the start of the year, and we expect this to continue as we head into the summer, especially in regions such as North Asia.”
At the start of 2024, Skyscanner saw record travel demand, outperforming the global flights market and being the fastest-growing metasearch in 2023*.
Skyscanner continues to be a strategic partner for some of the world’s biggest brands, airlines, and DMOs. It works with companies across the travel ecosystem, including DMOs like Visit California, to promote destinations. It powers the next generation of AI travel tools, such as Bing Chat and Layla, and helps airlines promote their unique offers via NDC and launch new routes based on data intelligence.
