Only 4 million of Vietnam’s 44 million digital population visit online travel sites, according to the MMX Multi-Platform report released on July 24 by comScore MMX-Platform.

The figure is highest in Australia, with 58 per cent, followed by Malaysia with 44 per cent, Japan 41 per cent, Indonesia 40 per cent, China 36 per cent, and India 33 per cent.

The report summarizes the behavioral patterns of consumers who visit online travel sites in the Asia-Pacific region. Its goal is to help travel professionals understand their audience by answering questions such as: How frequently do consumers visit travel sites? How long do the visits last? and Where do heavy users of travel services go online? The report limited its analysis to individuals aged 18 and above in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Consumers in Asia are leapfrogging the traditional technology curve by accessing travel services and information through mobile devices rather than desktops. The report noted that in countries such as India and Indonesia, the “mobile-only” segment, which consists of individuals who access travel information and services exclusively through mobile, is among the highest in the listed countries.

Consumers in different countries also display different information-gathering behavior. In Vietnam, the number of visits per person per month was 2.4; the same as in China and higher than in Indonesia. In Australia, they visit travel information sites often and spend a longer time on them. In Malaysia, however, consumers do not visit travel sites often but when they do they spend a lot of time on them.

In India, heavy users represent 20 per cent of the online travel audience and 79 per cent of the total time spent on such sites. This group is the most likely to purchase travel services and be turned into brand ambassadors if they have a positive travel experience.

They also tend to cluster in different categories of sites. For example, the proportion of heavy travel users is 4.5-times higher on ticketing sites than normal websites, 4.0-times higher on toy sites, 3.8-times higher on weather information sites, and 3.3-times higher on movie sites.

The MMX Multi-Platform report offers comprehensive reporting on more than 300,000 digital media entities, including their unduplicated audience size, demographic composition, engagement, performance within key user segments, and behavior.

VIR