Travellers across three regions - Asia, Europe and the US - appear to have very different priorities over what they can't live without on a trip.
Priceline-owned online travel agency Agoda asked 50,000 of its customers from all over the world to understand the top items that they most need during their trips during a survey carried out in February this year.
Key takeaways from the survey are below:
Mobile phone topped the list of things that Asian travellers need during their travel, with a 45% saying they cannot leave home without it. Credit cards emerged as the second most needed item with 29% of the vote.
When the Indian travel market is taken into consideration, Agoda's finding reflects an earlier survey by Skyscanner among 6,000 travellers in the Asia-Pacific region. That survey revealed that staying connected is of paramount importance to Indian travellers, and a whopping 72% of Indian travellers prefer to use traditional phone calls as a means of communication to update friends and family about their trip.
However, there are difference in priorities within APAC itself. According to the Agoda study, 38% of Japanese travellers need their credit cards while on travel, and only 28% need their mobile phones. This is a similar pattern observed among American and European travellers.
Both European and American traveller cited credit cards as the item they would least like to forget (47%), and only 19% chose mobile phones.
When asked about the reading preference during travel, digital seems to be have an edge over physical books. Laptops or tablets were chosen by 18% of travelers from the Americas, 13% of Europeans, and 11% Asians, as the item that they would least like to forget.
However, printed books were chosen by just 9% of travelers from Europe and the Americas, and 5% of Asians.
NB: Travellers image via Shutterstock.