Survey found “Occupy Central” few negative impacts on travel

In an online survey conducted earlier this month on travel enthusiasts in Hong Kong, 81.7% of the respondents said “Occupy Central” did not affected their travel plans last Christmas, and 89% said there was no effect on their travel plans in 2015 which can possibly include both keeping and increasing spending.

The survey found few canceled trips as a result. Of the 18.3% respondents whose holidays last Christmas had been negatively affected by “Occupy Central,” only 1.5% canceled their trips, 5.8% changed or postponed their holiday, and another 11% just spent less.

Using an in-house database, the survey was conducted by TKS which organizes ITE & MICE, Hong Kong’s annual international travel expo. Past public visitors of ITE & MICE were invited to take part in the survey. A total of 1,586 replies were received, and 35% of the respondents reported having an outbound holiday last Christmas.

Lasting for 4 days, the last ITE & MICE drew 12,308 regional buyers and trade visitors in two trade days, and 75,300 public visitors in two public days, plus 650 exhibitors (85% from abroad) from 47 countries and regions from all over the World.

The on-site survey in ITE & MICE 2014 found 59% of the public visitors traveled 2 to 4 times while another 16% traveled 5 times or more in the past twelve months. They are indeed travel enthusiasts, and are likely opinion leaders and/or trend-setters among friends and family members on traveling.

“Theme travels and traveling in FIT are becoming more popular, particularly among the affluent and seasoned travelers. They constitute a large part of our public visitors. We also want to find out more about their preferences through this survey”, said KS Tong, Managing Director of TKS.

When asked to pick interested travel themes, nearly 78% of respondents chose two or more and only 1.5% chose nothing. The top five popular themes are found to be “Wildlife Tour” at 40.7%, “Driving Tour” at 40%, “Travel Photography” at 35%, “Sport Tourism” at 34.5% and “Cruise” at 32.3%.

FIT (traveling individually instead of package tour) is popular in Hong Kong and increasingly so in mainland China too. In fact, some 77% of the public visitors of ITE & MICE 2014 preferred traveling in FIT. Many of these travelers often buy Air Ticket + Hotel packages for their trips.

The survey found 38.6% of respondents bought such package from travel agents and 70.7% online in the past 12 months. Moreover, 56.1% of respondents are interested in joining local tours at destination, a choice likely be more popular with FIT.