VISA: Vietnamese people expected to travel and spend more

Visa (NYSE: V) has announced a worldwide, comprehensive look at travel and tourism in 2018. The Visa Global Travel Intentions (GTI) Study findings highlight various parts of the travellers’ journey, surveying respondents from Vietnam as well as around the world.

The study found travellers around the world over are taking shorter and more frequent trips, motivated by the need to bond with family and loved ones—yet worries about the loss/theft of cash at their destination remain. Vietnamese travellers, in particular, are found to take the most shorts trips with 74 per cent of those being in four nights or less.

According to Sean Preston, Visa country manager for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, as the Vietnamese economy grows and an increasing number of citizens join the ranks of the global middle and upper classes, more people are going to take an interest in traveling the world.

“This is reflected in the results of our survey, with people taking more trips and spending more, while technology is giving travellers the ability to take trip planning and booking into their own hands. We have also seen really positive developments in card usage, with Vietnamese travellers relying heavily on their credit and debit cards for booking hotels, flights, and activities before embarking on their trips,” said Preston.

As the desire to travel continues to grow, the GTI Study, a comprehensive study of travellers from 27 countries, found motivations to travel have blurred, with consumers citing a combination of “achievement” and “reward” as a key motivator.

Among the top 5 motivations, reward-based motivations include bonding with family and friends and to unplug, while achievement-based motivations include experiencing new cultures and visiting exotic destinations. Six in ten travellers globally (63 per cent) describe themselves as wanting a combination of both throughout their travels, while seven in ten Vietnamese travellers (72 per cent) fall into this category.

The study also showed a range of positive trends amongst Vietnamese travellers. Some of the key findings from the Vietnam report include trips getting shorter while more trips are on an international basis, and travelers intend to pay more on their trips with frequent use of their bank and credit cards.

Accordingly, the average time spent abroad during the last trips is found to be four nights for Vietnamese travelers, much lower than the APAC average of seven nights. And on average, the local travelers are expected to take nearly five trips abroad in the next twp years or so, up from 3.5 trips overseas found in the past two years.

Most visited countries among the local vacationers, meanwhile, include Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Singapore, with the US emerging in the top five destinations.

Vietnamese expected to travel more beyond Asia and spend more

On their next trip, the travelers expect to spend a median amount of $1,100 per trip—up from a median amount of $880 on their last trip. With more cards to be used during their trips, 74 per cent of travellers employ credit or debit cards while booking their trips, and while at their destination, many do use cards, but the majority of travellers prefer to carry cash in foreign currency.