Credit: Skyscanner
THE Japanese are the biggest fans of F1 in Asia-Pacific, according to Skyscanner’s flight searches, but prospects of a roaring eighth Singapore Grand Prix this weekend are as cloudy as the haze that has enveloped the region.
Skyscanner’s data shows the biggest spike from Japan (up 346 per cent) in compound annual growth rate in flight searches was made from January to August 2012-2015 to travel during the F1 week. The next four F1 fanatics are Taiwan (up 127 per cent), Thailand (up 123 per cent), Hong Kong (up 105 per cent) and Malaysia (up 93 per cent).
Skyscanner does not believe these fanatics will stay away. Since F1 tickets sell out way in advance, travellers from the biggest fan areas won’t be searching for flights over the past two weeks, as they would have already made all their bookings earlier.
But with the haze reaching unhealthy levels starting late last week, Skyscanner has seen “a significant spike in outbound travel search from Singapore and affected neighbouring countries such as Malaysia”, according to Pamela Knaggs, marketing manager, Skyscanner Singapore and Malaysia.
“Our data indicates that there was an increase of 50.6 per cent and 21 per cent for flight searches out of Singapore and Malaysia respectively, week on week (i.e. from September 1-6 to September 7-13 for travel during the same week). While we don’t foresee tourist arrivals during the F1 weekend taking a major hit, it is evident that Singaporeans are actively planning their last-minute getaways during this period, with Thailand being the top outbound destination,” she added.
Luxury Tours & Travel Singapore director, Michael Lee, said his agency had received a handful of cancellations and a few calls of concern about the haze. “This is expected because the haze situation will cause their itinerary to change. Some of them have called to defer their trip to another period when the haze is cleared.”
Jaclyn Yeoh, director of Siam Express, said only a travel advisory will cause a “visible impact”.
“But so far there is no travel advisory and flights are still coming in so the situation is not that serious yet. Also, F1 will still be proceeding so it sends us the sign that things are still okay,” she said.
Additional reporting by Paige Lee Pei Qi
