JEDDAH, 25 August 2006 — Saudis have shown more inclination toward traveling abroad, inter-regional destinations being more popular, according to a survey conducted across the Kingdom. Some 82 percent of consumers surveyed in the Kingdom have already undertaken journeys or plan to travel during the rest of the year.
Almost 74 percent of consumers surveyed said they planned to go on personal travel in 2006, but only three percent said they planned to travel for business reasons and five percent said they would travel for both, results of the MasterIndex of Consumer Lifestyles survey for the first half of 2006 released here yesterday said.
Plans for personal travel have significantly increased compared to the results of the survey conducted six months previously. At that time only 30 percent of Saudi consumers surveyed said they planned to go on personal travel. A majority of Middle East & Levant (ME&L) consumers are on the move, according to the latest MasterIndex survey. This is a significant increase from the results of the previous MasterIndex survey when only 38 percent of ME&L consumers planned to travel out of the country.
The MasterIndex of Consumer Lifestyles survey is part of the biennial MasterIndex of Consumer Confidence, a survey commissioned by MasterCard Worldwide across South Asia, Middle East & Africa. Saudis prefer to travel during the summer months. Those surveyed in Kingdom favored July (22 percent) and August (25 percent), with September (18 percent) and October (15 percent) also popular. Not surprisingly, ME&L consumers generally follow this trend and favor travel during the summer months, particularly in July.
Those surveyed in Saudi Arabia reported that their preferred travel destination would be largely within the region. The UAE was the most popular destination (27 percent), followed by Egypt (24 percent) and other Gulf countries combined (12 percent).
Across ME&L, the choice of travel destination varies but Egypt, the UAE and other Gulf countries are generally popular. Previous surveys have revealed that ME&L travelers tend to stay within the GCC, but this survey saw Australia emerge as a favored destination, followed by Switzerland.
Consumers surveyed reported that their main activities when traveling would be entertainment, shopping, sightseeing, visits to beach resorts or spas and relaxation (28 percent). Concern over security and safety is the biggest worry for ME&L consumers who plan to travel this year.
For Saudi consumers, the number one concern is language or communication barriers, followed by security concerns, the risk of catching a contagious disease like bird flu or AIDS, running out of cash and getting lost or losing a passport.
The majority of ME&L travelers own some sort of payment card whether it is a credit card (49 percent), a debit card (52 percent) or a prepaid card (14 percent). Saudis favor credit cards, with 54 percent saying they own one.
Debit cards are also popular (19 percent) and four percent owned a prepaid card. Among Saudi consumers 52 percent of respondents said they considered a credit card more secure than cash and 100 percent said they considered a debit card more secure than cash.
Other results from the latest survey show that across ME&L 42 percent thought a credit card was more convenient (as opposed to 28 percent in the last survey), 39 percent thought credit cards were widely accepted (against 34 percent in the last survey) and 34 percent said a credit card gave them better control over their spending (against 22 percent in the last survey).
This indicates that confidence in payment cards and the value they add to the traveler is increasing.
