Singaporean travellers are eschewing traditional favourites in Central and Western Europe in favour of more novel destinations in the Balkans, observed travel agents at the Travel Revolution fair last weekend.
The recent terrorist attacks in popular cities such as London and Paris are driving the demand for exotic locations elsewhere in Europe, said Alice Lai, assistant general manager of CS Travel.
According to Stavri Cifligu, product manager of Balkans destination management company Albania Experience, travellers are starting to venture even further into South-eastern Europe to countries like Romania and Montenegro in what he describes as a “domino effect”.
A big draw of this region, said Cifligu, is its abundance of filming locations for popular shows such as Game of Thrones and Star Wars.
Capitalising on this trend, CS Travel rolled out low rates for its popular 10-day Europe itineraries at the fair to target family year-end travel from Singapore, said Lai.
Agency Travel Star is also providing more customised land tours and translator-guide services for these destinations, said marketing & HR manager Zheng Lingna.
“The trend now is that customers are adding land tours to their free-and-easy itineraries,” said Zheng. “They prefer to buy their own flight tickets online, then come to us with their own set of itineraries and plan their tour with us.”
Held from August 4-6, Travel Revolution also featured a line-up of Turkey, Finland, Norway and Eastern Europe specialist speakers to meet the climbing demand for the Balkans, as well as persisting interest in Scandinavia.
