Over Half of Discerning Travelers Planning Multiple Trips Abroad this Year; Croatia and Portugal are Trending Destinations
LOS ANGELES (January 9, 2014) – In a survey of more than 1,600 discerning travelers conducted by leading luxury travel website Luxury Link (luxurylink.com), Croatia and Portugal were tabbed as up-and-coming destinations for 2014, while adventurous and foodie-focused vacations are being planned this year.
Among global respondents – who each indicated their total annual household income is $100,000 or higher – 29.7% stated they are most interested in visiting Europe this year while 27.3% are Caribbean-bound.
For the Europhiles, 60.5% listed major cities as such as London, Paris and Rome as their primary area of interest. Two European nations, Croatia and Portugal, were named trending travel destinations in the coming year*. Among Caribbean sun-worshippers, Turks and Caicos was the most popular island choice, followed by the British Virgin Islands and Saint Lucia**.
These high-end travelers will not be sitting idle during their 2014 vacations: 46.3% plan to incorporate adventures such as hiking, sailing or SCUBA diving into their trips, while 40.7% are foodie-focused, centering travel around fine dining and/or cooking classes.
A worldly bunch, almost 55% are planning multiple trips abroad of two or more nights this year.
"Must-have" hotel amenities for 2014 include free WiFi (75.7% of respondents), early check-in/late check-out (53.6%) and free daily breakfasts (47.1%).
Finally, travelers were asked to rank the relative importance of five travel resources in the vacation-planning process. The results are as follows:
1) Review sites (TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.)
2) Booking sites (Luxury Link, Kayak, Orbitz, etc.)
3) Word of mouth/personal recommendations
4) Media content (TV shows, online videos, blogs, newspapers)
5) Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)
Created by Matt Cogswell/Luxury Link Travel Group
To view a larger version of the 2014 luxury travel trends infographic, click here.
The aforementioned survey was conducted on LuxuryLink.com from December 12-23, 2013. 1,667 respondents indicating they have an annual household income of $100,000 or more are included in these survey results.
* Respondents were provided five multiple-choice responses and a free-form "Other" field
** Respondents were provided six multiple-choice responses and a free-form "Other" field
