Quick insights on the digital travel landscape in APAC

Here are three key findings from the study:

1. Penetration is highest in Taiwan, but China has the largest market.

• The digital landscape in APAC is shaped by the Chinese and Indian consumer to a large extent, and the travel industry is no exception.
• China and India have the highest number of users of travel websites, with 311 million (38%) and 152 million (54%) respectively.
• There are differences in the adoption of online travel services by market and the APAC region still has plenty of room for expansion.

2. In the APAC region (excluding China and India), travel information sites are the largest category with 55 million unique visitors.

• In China and India, the travel information category ranked fourth, with 46 and 42 million unique visitors respectively.
• In India, travellers tend to travel domestically by land or sea rather than airlines. This can be seen by India’s top 2 categories of travel sites – ground & cruise and car transportation.
• Online travel agents dominate the travel landscape in China. This volume is largely due to the dominance of Ctrip, Alitrip (also known as Fliggy) and Qunar, travel booking sites that provide travel services.

3. Consumers in Asia are leapfrogging the traditional technology curve by accessing travel services and information through mobile devices rather than desktop.

• In countries such as India and Indonesia, the ‘mobile-only’ segment, which consists of individuals who access travel information and services exclusively through mobile, is among the highest in the listed countries.
• Although China has a large mobile-first population on a percentage basis and the largest in terms of total digital population, the size of the combined desktop-only and multi-platform populations is still significant, with over 103 million unique visitors.
• Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore have digital populations that are spread quite evenly across the three platforms, with large combined desktop-only and multi-platform populations.

To learn more about how China and India differ from the rest of APAC, download the whitepaper here.

For high-level findings from the whitepaper (with additional insights from India and Indonesia), check out the presentation report here.

If you have additional questions about this study, please contact us.