A “clear trend” towards travel to the Asia Pacific region for Christmas has emerged in latest booking data released by global bedbank Hotelbeds.
The US theme park capital of Orlando remains the most popular destination, following by Phuket in Thailand and New York.
The other most booked destinations list includes Tenerife, Paris, Bangkok, Dubai, Cancun, Singapore and Hong Kong – with four of the top ten destinations being in Asia Pacific, up from only three last year.
The UK has emerged as the company’s most important source market for Hotelbeds, followed by Spain, the US, Mexico and Brazil.
UK travellers favour Tenerife, Lanzarote and Benidorm in Spain as their top foreign spots to spend the festive season followed by Phuket, Orlando, New York, Algarve, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Dubai, according to the Hotelbeds’ data.
The average stay for the Christmas period will be 4.47 nights, with average bookings of up to eight nights in the Spanish destinations.
The UK as a destination for Christmas is most popular domestically followed by travellers from Spain, the US – with a strong increase in room nights over last year – Germany, Netherlands, Egypt, Italy, France, Australia and the UAE.
The firm’s bedbank managing director Carlos Munoz said: “Whilst the traditional Christmas destinations such as Orlando – well known for Disney – remain amongst the most popular with travellers who book via our customers, nonetheless a clear trend is emerging compared to last year, Asia Pacific destinations continue to be a growth market for us.
“This reflects in part the ever increasing desire of global travellers to visit the region.
“But the main driver of the increase in bookings for the destination via our platform is our increased presence in the region as a bedbank, working with local travel sellers in the local source market – many of whose customers in turn want to book hotels for holidays in the region.
“To respond to this increased demand we have been increasing our portfolio of hotels globally, and in particular in Asia-Pacific.
“Since Tourico Holidays and GTA became part of our group earlier this year, we now have over 170,000 hotels available on the platform.”