UAE. YouGov Siraj’s latest Travel Tracker update shows a further shift towards economy class as companies slash travel budgets.

Travel Tracker is a research tool which tracks travel trends quarterly. Some 844 travellers from the UAE responded to the survey during January 2009.

The amount people are flying from the UAE remained stable in 2008 compared to 2007 but this falls far short of how much they had been expecting to travel.  In October 2008, around half of business and leisure travellers were expecting to see an increase in travel, today less than quarter are.

The global credit crisis has affected UAE resident’s attitudes towards how much they believe they will travel over the next year. UAE travellers are currently expecting to fly less in the future than they were three months ago.  n October 2008, 10% and 9% of leisure and business travellers were expecting a decrease, now that figure has risen to 32% and 33% respectively.

“In just three months attitudes have shifted dramatically. What we are seeing is that travellers haven’t yet changed their travel behaviour but they are starting to panic about the future. With increased nervousness about job security people now believe they will travel much less. The fact remains that people are still flying but airlines need to work harder to encourage them onto their planes. Research like this is required more than ever to help travel companies survive in this time of crisis,” says Jane Wilson, Director, Travel & Tourism Research at YouGovSiraj.

Economy, traditionally the main choice of class for both business and leisure travellers, is expected to be used even more.  12% more business travellers are expecting to fly economy than in October 2008. Some 7% more of leisure travellers will shift to economy class.

Three months ago, the majority of business travellers were expecting to see an increase in budgets over the next year. Now that attitude has almost reversed with 42% expecting to see a decrease.  

In order to keep costs down, UAE residents plan to spend their next holiday closer to their country of residence. This means there may be an increase in travel in the region. This finding comes from another of YouGovSiraj syndicated research tools, ’Reality Check – UAE’, a survey amongst 725 consumers in December 2008. 

YouGovSiraj’s ‘Reality Check – UAE’ also shows that UAE residents do believe the economic situation will improve but are bracing themselves for the long-haul. When asked how the economic situation will change in the future, the majority, 67% of respondents believe it will take two years or more for improvements to be felt.

Jane Wilson is Director of Travel & Tourism Research at YouGovSiraj, a full service research agency. She has over 18 years global market research experience, 15 years in aviation/travel research, she most recently headed up the research team at Emirates and prior to that lead the research team at the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

For more information about the Travel Tracker and other travel research, log on to www.yougovsiraj.com

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