Miscellaneous Forum

Opinion? Maybe it is due to the current world economic situation and the higher costs associated with Asian travel. More people are traveling to Europe due to bargains that can be had right now. Additionally, many people subconsciously still have concerns about Japan (the most popular Asian destination) and radiation. That is only my opinion.

This is very seasonal and happens every year. Questions about Europe boom in may and august cause this is just before Europe and North America goes on holiday. The same time of year is not very good for holidaying in Thailand and the Philippines for instance so their questions go down. But once we get in to the fall then you will see that there are more questions about Asia, Australia and Latin america. vt has a lot of asian travellers as members though. They mostly belong to the new middle class that has sprung up in the past 15 years in this part of the world. One thing i have noticed is that we have more questions about a destination whenever Air Asia (biggest low cost carrie in Asia and recently voted best low cost carrier in the world for the 4th year in a row) opens a new destination. They just started flying Kathmandu for instance and i bet you guys we will see a few forum questions about Nepal in the coming 3 months.

I must say, I hadn't actually noticed although I don't doubt what you say. olddude, Japan "the most popular destination"? By what definition? Amongst which group of travellers? I have never been and never will but I find it unbelievable that it would have more holiday travellers than, say, Thailand which, depending on what figures you read, attracts about 17 million visitors a year.

Japan has rather bemused me too. I would have thought Thailand... The forums have always been pretty seasonal, in my experience. And there are also very quiet periods as well. I don't think European (or US) school holidays have an impact at this time of year: those questions tend to appear much earlier on, when people are planning their summer break.

yes, Fergie i am also surprised that Japan is NO 1 destination, especially recently i saw a report of the top 10 destinations in Asia. I think Thailand was NO 1 with 30m + visitors, but i was surprised that Phil only had 3m visitors--- room for improvement. I just have been informed that in 2007 Japan had a record 8.3m visitors so i believe our friend ha s been misinformed cos it could not increase 4-fold so quickly!!

Wiki says we're all wrong...China first, then Malaysia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_... But Thailand is way more than Japan, so we are sort of right. :-)

I think a lot of people ask questions about Japan cause they are worried about the price level and want to make sure they are well prepared. And Malasia scores high because Air Asia brings in hordes of middle class tourists from all over Asia. And i think that we western travellers are sometimes a little fast to think that only wetserners travel cause that was pretty much the case in old days about 25 years ago, but these days tourists are from so many parts of the worldas the middle class there is rising, and it's rising very fast in some places.

Yes Cashaceiro, often a plane arrives here and friends ask 'are there many tourists on board?'. 'only a few ' is the answer but they are only looking at white faces, but local Filipino tourists far out number western tourists!!!

In the Philippines the western tourists are an absolute minority. Local pinoys are the biggest group followed by korean and chinese tourists. Boracay is turning in to a mini korea these days during the peak holiday season. I am cycling through Malaysia right now and i stay in hotels every night and see many tourits there, but i can easily go for 2-3 days without seeing a white person, but that dosen't mean i don't see tourists.

I did say "opinion". I did not go to any travel data to back up what I said....mainly because data can be used in various ways depending on what was counted. For example, does any of that data account for stop overs? By that I mean, if Thailand were the primary destination for a western traveler, what are the chances they had a non-stop flight to Asia? Sometimes those stop overs are 2 or 3 days. Yes, travel is seasonal, but it depends on how the numbers are tallied to determine "most popular". So, I am not so much misinformed as I am assuming based on how I know numbers can be used to justify something. The only way to know for sure is to take a cross section of all travel data over a long period of time....say 10 years. However, based on this discussion, I stand corrected.

Europeans have access to direct flights to Asian destinations. Layovers for Europeans are most usually required for flights to Australia and NZ.

On most layovers you don't get stamped in to the country. You just wait at the airport for a few hours and then go directly to the connecting flight. I love layovers myself though and always try to stay a few days in the places i have a layover. This way i get to see some places i did not really think of visiting in the first place.

I see a general decline in the number of questions asked in this travel forum. I wonder if it's because non-English speaking tourists are asking questions on their native langugage travel sites... It used to be you never see any Chinese tourists outside of China, now they are everywhere around the world.