Expedia, one of the world’s largest online travel agencies, has launched “Things to Do” as part of its expanding portfolio of travel services.
This new product, with Expedia Asia leading the charge, aims to increase supply, accessibility for its customers and availability across all platforms for making travel plans.
The Singapore launch will be followed by other countries within Asia, with India and Japan rolling out the product by the end Q2 this year.
Kathleen Tan: New product helps travellers to create their own travel itinerary.
“Asian travellers tend to opt for a package trip to cover flights, hotels and tours. So now, with this offering, more Asian travellers can rely on Expedia for options to choose their preferred activities for all their travel booking and create a unique travel itinerary that is their own,” said Kathleen Tan, CEO of Expedia Asia.
As “Things to Do” and activities is an evolving segment of the travel industry Expedia will build on this segment to continually increase its offering, “knowing that freedom to choose leisure activities is exactly what the Asian traveller wants when booking online.” she added.
Creating complete travel plans ahead is gaining popularity with more Singaporeans booking their holidays via online travel agencies. Expedia.com.sg sees more itineraries created with hotel, flight and activities completing the entire trip by independent travellers.
The company added that “Things to Do” helps reduce stress of booking during the trip, avoiding sell-outs or cutting wait time to await confirmation. All activity confirmations are done ahead of the trip.
To further help Singaporeans experience more in their trips abroad or staycations at home, Expedia.com.sg offers its Local Expert guide via “Things to Do”, with hundreds of activities across top destinations available on its site.
Top destinations booked from Singapore include Bali, Phuket, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Krabi, Melbourne, Ho Chi Minh and Penang.
Penang is one of the top destinations booked. (Image credit: Pasticcio/iStock)
The top activity booked by Singaporeans in these destinations were transport or transfer services with almost 60% booked transfers for their trips.
A close second was bookings for tours, theme parks and experiences, especially those that involved food.
Beyond the usual beach and city haunts in Indonesia and Thailand, tours ranked high when Singaporeans booked for cities like Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Melbourne in Australia. Almost all of activity bookings for Ho Chi Minh were for tours (88%) while Melbourne’s tour bookings came in a close second at 68%.
In Hong Kong, theme parks were the major draw with Hong Kong Disneyland as the most popular. These bookings were non-seasonal, alluding to Disneyland’s timeless appeal. Bookings included flights and hotel plans to create a full itinerary with visit to the theme park.
Singaporeans’ penchant for wining and dining also showed in their bookings. For experiences, 75% of the bookings were for cooking lessons or food tour while 25% of bookings were for wine or vineyard experiences.
