PATA reveals trends of the French outbound market to Asia Pacific

PARIS - Daniela Wagner, Managing Director Europe for PATA and President of PATA French Chapter, was talking about trends on the French market with experts from Forward Keys, TCI Research and Tripadvisor during IFTM Top Resa. In a difficult economic climate, French travellers continue to plebiscite Asia due to the excellent reputation of most countries in the region.

According to TCI Research "TRAVELSAT Competitive Index" done from 35,000 interviews, four out of ten first-time travellers to Asia Pacific came for the good fame of the destination. Three of 10 visitors named also a positive word-of-mouth. Films shot in the destination and travel agencies also play a stronger prescription’s role s than in other continents competitors analyzed.

According to Forward Keys, bookings on the GDS show an overall increase of 3.2% between January and August 2014. Growing destinations among travellers during that period are Sri Lanka (32%), Indonesia (9%) and Japan (7%) while demand stagnated to Thailand (0%) and dropped to both China (-3%) and Hong Kong (-4%). However, Thailand, China, India and Vietnam account however for 56% of all bookings.

Interestingly, only a quarter of all travellers departing from France to Asia took a non-stop flight. 60% of them were in transfer and even 12% of all travellers took two transfers to their final destination in Asia Pacific. Asian airports are the most used hubs for transfer (48% of all trips) before European hubs (25%) and the Gulf area (23%). In the last two years, Middle East airports recorded a 11% growth of their transfer traffic.

According to TCI Research, Asia obtains a better satisfaction index than the rest of the world for the beauty of its scenery, heritage, gastronomy, hospitality and opening hours of shops. Visa requirements and internal transport remain however the black sheep of the continent...

sourced:traveldailynews.asia