Abacus picks the growth markets

Abacus has released its Travel Sentiment for the second half of 2009. Here are some highlights.

• Despite the fear of a decrease in travel, Abacus’ air booking data showed that there are some green shoots in terms of a selection of positive market performances. Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Philippines, China, Pakistan, Nepal and Kazakhstan all registered growth for January to June 2009 compared to the same period last year.

• The increase in air bookings for Vietnam could be partly due to rising income levels of Vietnamese and reduced costs of outbound travel due to the rising number of low cost carriers and promotional campaigns from tour operators – all creating favourable conditions for overseas travel.

According to Vietnamese news web portal VietNamNet Bridge, agencies reported a rise of between 10 to 15 per cent for sales of their international tours over the four-day May Day/South Vietnam Liberation Day (April 30) break, where packages were discounted by as much as 20 to 25 per cent.

• Attractive promotions and discounts by airlines could have stimulated travel from several of the growth markets. Philippines Airlines’ appealing promotional fares to selected cities on its international network could have motivated Filipinos to take to the skies earlier this year.

Similarly in Thailand, Thai Airways offered attractively-priced fares to Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Korea and other regional destinations. A number of other services were also being offered at no extra charge to add value to passengers’ travelling experience during this time.

These included lounge access for all class of travel and 40-kilogramme luggage allowance per passenger.

• Kazakhstan’s outbound travel has been on the rise, seeing an increase of almost four per cent in 2008. This has continued into the first half of this year, fuelled mostly by the growing level of disposable incomes.

A Euromonitor report indicated the country has seen the emergence of an affluent middle class who are keen to travel out of the country, especially during the winter season.

• Looking forward to the next half of the year, air bookings from markets in Asia with significant numbers of Muslim residents could drop as fears over the possibility of contracting the H1N1 virus might prompt them to defer their November pilgrimage to Mecca.

At a meeting in July, Arab health ministers decided to ban children, the elderly and those with chronic medical conditions from performing the religious Haj annual pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia this year in an effort to slow the spread of swine flu.

At the time of writing, governments in Asia have not announced similar restrictions.

Source: The Transit Cafe