City of Hallstatt, Austria
LESSER-KNOWN destinations in Europe are quickly gaining in popularity among Asia’s travellers, according to Agoda’s latest Travel Smart study released yesterday.
Compared to the traditionally popular cities of Paris and London, which still draws the largest crowd in terms of volume, bookings for smaller European cities are growing at a much faster rate.
UNESCO-listed Hallstatt in Austria was the fastest growing European destination, with more than twice as many bookings in 2015 than in 2014. This is followed by Germany’s Fussen – home to Neuschwanstein, a 19th-century castle. Meanwhile, the port city of Glasgow in Scotland ranked third.
The top 10 European destinations booked in 2015 and its percentage growth from 2014
“Our travellers from Asia are broadening their reach and we are seeing faster growth rates in the types of European destinations people visit after they’ve already been to the bigger cities,” said John Brown, CEO of Agoda.
The study, which looked at destinations with more than 1,000 bookings in 2015, compared millions of transactions made by Agoda travellers in Asia in 2014 and 2015.
