SINGAPORE: With the long weekend Lunar New Year holidays this year, more people in Singapore are choosing to celebrate the festivities outside the country.
Another reason for the stronger demand for Lunar New Year travel this year is because of Singapore's robust economic recovery in 2010, said travel agencies.
CTC Travel and Chan Brothers saw bookings for this year's Lunar New Year travel coming in as early as August last year.
Travel agencies MediaCorp spoke to said bookings for holidays and tours rose 15-20% compared to the same period last year.
CTC Travel's Alicia Seah said the increase was despite airfare hikes due to higher fuel surcharges and airport taxes.
In fact, she said many airlines have increased the number of flights to popular destinations.
Korean Airlines and Asiana Airlines have added about 20 flights in February alone.
She said China Airlines has even arranged for two special chartered flights into Taiwan during the Lunar New Year period.
But where are holiday makers heading?
Ms
Jane Chang, assistant manager for marketing & communications at
Chan Brothers Travel, said: "The more popular places for CNY this year
would be China, Japan, Vietnam, Australia and Korea, in that particular
order.
"For some destinations such as China, we have
specially-themed Chinese New Year travel packages, where the travellers
actually get to visit minority villages and they get to celebrate the
festivities with the locals, which are very different from our bustling
city lifestyle.
"And one of the highlights is that the families
get to set off firecrackers, something the younger generation of
Singaporeans don't or probably have never experienced before."
Some holidaymakers are venturing further to places like Europe and Australia.
Some
are also choosing to travel differently. Travel agencies said they have
seen an increase in the number of people opting for cruise travel
during this Lunar New Year period.
They see such travel as a potential area for growth.
For Chan Brothers, demand for cruises has doubled during this Lunar New Year period, compared to last year.
Ms Jane Chang of Chan Brothers said they are not just weekend cruises, but also cruises to regional and worldwide destinations.
- CNA/ir