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SINGAPORE: The prognosis for travel next year does not look good. But for now, travel agents say, Singaporeans have still been travelling this festive year-end period.
Despite the financial slowdown, travel agents said numbers have, more or less, held steady.
SA Tours, for example, saw only a drop of about 5 per cent for this peak travel season compared with the same period last year.
"My job is secure, so I thought I would give myself a holiday," said a Singaporean.
"We are students, so we are not affected much (by the economic downturn)," said a group of students.
"Budget-wise, maybe. Instead of $3k, you spend $2k. But I think it's still okay...you still need to travel," said another person.
Alicia Seah, Commonwealth Travel Service (CTC Travel)'s senior vice-president for marketing and public relations, said: "I think Singaporeans are still travelling. It's an essential now, not a luxury. But I think they will travel with a budget in mind. I think we see that people are travelling to more regional destinations (like) Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong."
But such shorter and cheaper destinations have had an impact on travel agents' bottom lines.
CTC Travel, for example, has seen revenues decline by 10-15 per cent as a result of more travellers opting for shorter and cheaper places.
Even though the outlook is expected to get worse next year, there is a silver lining for passengers.
Ruth Lim, SA Tours' marcomms manager, said: "I think it will be a pretty slow year but we are still speaking to airlines and partners to see what else more we can do - not just about price but also value add packages."
CTC Travel's Alicia said: "We are hopeful that hotels and airlines would drop prices by about 10-20 per cent. That way, we can pass back the savings to consumers."
There is another reason that could stimulate travel demand next year.
One of the things travel agents are looking forward to are the high number of long weekends.
In fact, a simple flip of next year's calendar will show that these holidays are interspersed throughout the year, with a whopping nine long weekends in all!
Going forward, other than leisure travel, corporate and incentive travel is expected to continue to do badly next year - at least for the first half.
School trips, agents say, have however remained fairly recession-proof this season.
Many schools are still sending their students for educational and cultural tours.
- CNA/ir
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