While Mainland China outbound travel started declining in December, it has since reached a plateau and trends show that domestic travel took a sharp drop in mid-January when China imposed a lockdown, but continues to improve since mid-February showing positive upticks.

This trend comes amidst China being prominent in the news – politically, where a lengthy rebuttal of allegations was submitted over its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak and elsewhere in the country, Shanghai Disneyland reopened on 11th May to a reduced number of visitors, ending a three-month closure.

Source Market: China – Domestic Travel

Hong Kong domestic travel was on a decline, but is showing clear signs of recovery since mid-February. Hong Kong outbound travel declined until the end of January, but has started to show signs of recovery at the end of April. We noticed that this uptick is coming from Hong Kong to China specifically. While Hong Kong has been celebrating progress of the containment of the virus, are more troubles on the road ahead as riot police chased protesters over the Mother’s Day weekend?

Source Market: Hong Kong – Domestic Travel

South Korean domestic and outbound travel has seen a general decline since mid-December, but we are seeing a slight improvement in April.

Following positive news of containment of the virus, over the weekend, South Korea warned of a second wave of cases as a new cluster formed around a number of nightclubs. Since then, the capital Seoul shut down all night clubs, bars, and discos.

Source Market: South Korea – Domestic Travel

Taiwan domestic travel has a slower decline than average and shows signs of recovery in the second week of April. Additionally, Taiwan outbound has been on a decline since mid-January, but has reached a plateau.

Taiwan announced over the weekend that they had no new cases of COVID-19 to report, meaning the country has gone 28 days without reporting a single local transmission. This could reflect positively on travel trends in the near future.

Source Market: Taiwan – Domestic Travel

Webinar: A Focus on Asia Pacific For Hoteliers

In this regionally-focused webinar, we discussed how the pandemic has impacted the Asia-Pacific region, and provided some useful recommendations for what you can do now to help your business prepare for the recovery period. Sojern’s General Manager of APAC, Lina Ang, and Jason Chia, Manager of Customer Success, shared insights and answered your questions. Watch the replay here:

Please download the slides here.

February 2021 Has The Highest Search Volume In The Last 28 Days Across Asia

Looking at our flight data and the flight searches conducted in the last 28 days, we can tell that travellers are searching and dreaming of a destination during some specific months ahead.

February 2021 has the highest search volume intent. We believe that this could be due to the Chinese Lunar New Year and that travellers are looking for potential destinations to visit. Additionally, we noticed that September and November this year do have a high search volume and this could be due to the mid-Autumn Festival in China – just four months away!

Future Flight Departure Date Searches from East Asia, Oceania and Southeast Asia

What Is Happening Down Under In Comparison To Singapore And Hong Kong?

Hong Kong seems to have the highest search volume in November and this could be due to two anticipated events happening – The Airline Economic Growth and Fintech Conference. As for Singapore and Australia, February 2021 is the highest search month. Even though the numbers are still lower than last year’s volume, it is a positive sign that travellers are ‘dreaming’ and planning their next trip.

Australia and New Zealand largely avoided high casualty cases introducing strict nationwide stay at home orders and border closures, including travelling between states. Positive signs coming out of Australia indicate that students of New South Wales and Queensland began returning to school this week on a limited basis, as the country’s rate of new infections continued to slow.

Future Flight Departure Date Searches to Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore

We’ll continue to share more insights as we monitor the situation and provide recommendations in this series. For the rest of the COVID-19 insights series click here.

Teesta Raha is Sojern's Senior PR & Content Manager for APAC. When not working, you will find Teesta traveling, doing yoga, reading and occasionally, golfing.