More than 70 percent of respondents are confident they would be able to resume international travel within a year, travel booking platform Booking.com’s “Asia-Pacific Region Travel Confidence Report” said on Wednesday.
People around the world have significantly different views regarding international travel, with Taiwanese expressing a high percentage of willingness to travel abroad, the report said.
Most of the respondents cited a need to “take a trip” after having been cooped up for two years due to COVID-19 restrictions, it said.
Asked what they were most worried about regarding international travel, respondents from Singapore, China and Hong Kong said they feared being “trapped” at a destination due to new border controls resulting from a COVID-19 outbreak.
However, Taiwanese respondents were more worried about being infected with SARS-CoV-2 while traveling, the report said.
Fifty-eight percent listed catching the disease as their greatest concern, while 37 percent said they were concerned about being trapped at a destination, it said.
Thirty-five percent said they were worried about quarantine measures upon returning to Taiwan, the report said.
This highlights that Taiwanese are mostly concerned about their health and how quarantine policies would affect their plans, it said.
Indian repondents were the most optimistic of those interviewed, with 86 percent expressing confidence that they would travel internationally within a year.
Respondents from India, Vietnam and China were the most willing to endure inconveniences while traveling, but those from the same three countries, as well as Japan, were also the most pessimistic about their respective countries relaxing border controls, with 37 percent saying that there were “uncomfortable” with the situation in their respective home nations.
Among Taiwanese respondents, the proportion who expressed doubt that Taiwan was ready to open its borders was 37 percent, while 29 percent said that the nation is ready, the report said.
Respondents from Japan and South Korea were the most opposed to the interruptions to international travel, with 47 percent of Japanese and 32 percent of South Koreans expressing frustration with the situation, the report showed.
Sixty-eight percent of Taiwanese respondents said that they could accept their travel plans being interrupted, while only 9 percent were unwilling to accept such disruptions, it said.
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