In putting WIT-Web In Travel 2009 together, I have been traveling across the region and getting a taste of what’s unfolding in the online travel landscape.
From Kuala Lumpur to Taipei to Bangkok, a similar story seems to be unfolding – that a convergence of trends is moving more and more consumers online and onto mobile in this biggest, and fastest growing market in the world.
First, there’s the crisis that’s made 2009 The Year of the Deal in Asia, and many of these deals are being pushed online by suppliers.
Second, there’s been an almighty explosion in the growth of low cost carriers particularly in the South-east Asian region with ASEAN Open Skies coming into effect.
And what do LCCs do best? They push deals online.
Third, there’s the huge love affair Asians have with their gadgets and their penchant for texting, blogging and social networking.
Perhaps it’s the reserved nature of the Asian (and I use the term loosely because a Malaysian like me is as different from a Singaporean as a French man is from an English chap) but the anonymity of mobile texting and the internet has been the key that opened Pandora’s Box in the region.
Consider the population base of internet and mobile users. According to various sources of data, the Asia Pacific is home to 42% of all internet users and has 1.4 billion mobile phone subscribers.
China and India combined account for more than 900 million mobile phone subscribers, close to a quarter of global total users.
The Asia-Pacific region’s share of the worldwide mobile market is expected to surpass 50%, from the current 42%, within the next two years.
And what do they do with their mobiles phones? Well, mostly they text.
In Singapore, 1.2 billion text messages are sent by its residents a year. But the Filipinos are tops – they send 650 text messages per user per month, considered the highest in the world, which is why the Philippines is nicknamed ‘SMS capital of the world’. The country has more than 54 million cellphone subscribers.
Then there are those that cannot leave their home without it, and some cannot live without it.
A Synovate global survey showed three-quarters of the more than 8,000 respondents polled online in 11 places said they take their cellphones with them everywhere. And Singaporeans lead the pack here, along with Russians.
More than a third of respondents went as far as to say that they cannot live without their mobile phones, topped by Taiwanese followed by Singaporeans.
And they are changing social habits. The survey showed that nearly half of all respondents use text messages to flirt, a fifth set up first dates via SMS, and almost the same number use the same method to end a relationship — led by Filipinos and Malaysians.
Apparently, more than one in five Malaysians have broken up with someone, or have been jilted, via text messaging.
Personally, I haven’t had the pleasure of doing that myself but I can see how mobile phones can come in handy in such situations – you may move but you can’t hide.