SARS affected travel habits and choice of destinations of Hong Kong travelers

While fewer Hong Kong citizens took overseas holiday in this year, most likely as a result of the SARS outbreak in the early part of this year, those who did travel with greater sophistication than before according to a survey conducted in the two public days of ITE Hong Kong 2003 (Sept 27 - 28, 2003), the annual International Travel Expo held recently in HKCEC.

Findings showed that 28.7% of the respondents did not take any holiday trip this year, a big increase from last year´s figure of 6.7%! But fewer travelers (36.4%) this year took package tour than the 58% last year.

More Hong Kong travelers were attracted by new activities, such as spa, cruises and extending their stays after package tours. Each of these attracted around 10% respondents.

China remains the most popular to Hong Kong travelers as 41.5% of the respondents cited it as their last travel destination. Whilst there has been an increase for trips to Guangdong, the survey did show a reduction to other provinces of China. At 41.4%, Asia ranked second to China as destination, representing a gain of 4.4% over last year.

There was a corresponding drop in other non-Asian destinations. The findings indicated that SARS has affected the choice of destinations this year. However, compared to last year, nearly 4% less respondents chose price or discount as the major criteria of destination selection despite the recent economic problems of Hong Kong.

Over 50% of the respondents spent more than HK$5,000 per trip per person including shopping expenses, a finding that is in line with the growing sophistications of their travels. Holiday remains popular as 64% of the respondents already have plan for overseas travels in the coming six months, and another 10% will consider it.

As for the choice of the next travel destination, Asia got 51.9% coming first, and China remained a distant second at 16.3%, to be followed by Europe at 14.9% and America at 6.4%.

This year, in the two trade days before the public days, ITE drew 6,800 trade visitors and buyers from both locally and overseas. There were 580 international exhibitors in the Expo this year, a slight increase despite its postponement as a result of SARS.

The two public days of ITE Hong Kong attracted 44,800 visitors. Among them, over 800 were successfully interviewed for the survey. Over 50% of the interviewees reported a personal monthly income of over HK$10,000 and about 40% of them are university graduates or postgraduates.

The next edition of ITE Hong Kong will be held on 10- 13 June 2004 at Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Center and organized by Adsale Exhibition Services Ltd.