With the holiday season upon us, HolidayMe, a website offering on-the-fly customized travel solutions to customers across the Middle East, revealed the findings of its travel survey.
The survey which was conducted online with over 1,500 HolidayMe customers in the UAE, revealed Maldives (27.1%), Georgia (16.8%) and the United Kingdom (13%) as the top three preferred holiday destinations.
Nearly half (48.3%) of the respondents plan a vacation once a year with nearly a third (31.1%) holidaying twice a year. 12.6% also said that they vacationed on a more frequent basis – once every quarter.
Geet Bhalla, CEO and Co-founder, HolidayMe said, “The UAE is a land of opportunities where dreams come true and when you couple this with its geographical proximity to most parts of the world, residents are spoiled for choice. The travel and tourism industry in the UAE for inbound and outbound travel is booming. With our unique holiday planning and booking services we are well positioned to leverage this opportunity and cater to the needs of residents by focusing on Big Data-driven solutions.”
The survey also revealed a majority preference, 79.4% of the respondents, for complete holiday packages that include hotels, flights, activities and transportation with those looking only for hotels and flights coming a distant second at 11.9% followed by 8.7% seeking hotels, activities and transportation.
The survey also revealed price consciousness among UAE residents with 85.3% looking at a maximum per person spend of AED 2500. 18.8% were willing to spend less than AED 500 per person for a holiday package followed closely by 21.4%, 24.4% and 20.7% seeking packages in the range of AED 500-800, AED 800-1500 and AED 1500-2500 respectively.
Furthermore, respondents said that they most often sought out family vacation packages (44%) followed by couple’s holidays at 38.2% and friends-only holidays at 13.7%.
“This travel survey provides us with interesting information that we can harness to enhance our product and service offering and make more informed decisions. That UAE residents love to travel and explore the world is no secret however specifics like a preference for complete holiday packages, price range, family vacations among others are key to us offering intelligent and convenient customer service”, added Digvijay Pratap, Co-founder of HolidayMe.
Thailand (7.7%), Netherlands (5.4%), Malaysia (4.5%), Turkey (3.5%) and Armenia (2.1%) were the other holiday destinations among others that made it to the preferred list of UAE residents.