INSIGHT Vacations wants to grow its Asian market from 10 to 15 per cent by 2014. Currently, its top three sources in Asia are Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Its CEO/ president, John Boulding, sees the three markets maintaining their top three positions, with Indonesia showing a bigger growth percentage.
To grow the Asian market further, Boulding said: “We will build more products to suit Asian travellers. The seasonality has to be right, the duration has to be right and the destination has to be right.”
He said Asians tended to take shorter holidays of nine or 10 days on average compared to their US and European counterparts. He added that the popular destinations among Asian travellers were Italy, Poland, Spain and Portugal, Eastern Europe and Switzerland.
He described Asian travellers as “sophisticated” and looked for itineraries that were off the beaten track such as visiting Dracula’s Castle in Romania and the country road series in Scotland.
Thaddeus Foo, managing director of Corporate Information Travel, Insight Vacations’ recently appointed GSA for Malaysia (excluding Penang), noted that his company had received more than 40 bookings from individuals for travel to Europe and US for Winter 2012. He said: “This is a good time to travel as the euro and US dollar have depreciated.”
Boulding said average prices of Insight Vacations’ European programmes in 2013 were 10 to 15 per cent lower compared with 2012.
