Tajawal Highlights Key Traveller Trends For Its Third Anniversary

Dubai: In celebration of its third anniversary, tajawal, the Middle East-based flights and hotel booking online travel platform has once again compiled a deep-dive of travel trends; analysing all bookings from 2018 to give thorough insights on Middle East travellers.

In a move to provide more specific and tailored holiday content and options, tajawal introduced segmented travel options last year; recognising that the majority of bookings fall under six categories of family, luxury, home seekers, honeymooners, adventurers and heat escapists.

Analysis found that family travellers booked on average 34 days in advance of their travel departure and preferred to visit destinations including; Cairo, Kochi, Amman, Beirut, Mumbai and Kerala. On average they holiday for 10 days at a time and opted for travel in July, August and December – presumably working around school term dates.

Luxury travellers or business-class customers opted to also travel during the same months as family travellers but spent a little longer in their selected holiday destination; on average travelling for 14 days. Top destinations for the luxury traveller from the Middle East in 2018 included London, Beirut, Jeddah and Mumbai. These high earners tended to have a shorter window of planning; booking just 14.5 days from their departure date and enjoyed the highest average frequency of trip from all the segments at 1.4 times per year.

Data also highlighted that the preferred destinations for customers escaping the summer heat of the Middle East; aka the ‘heat escapists’ included: Paris, London, Rome and Prague. In these cooler destinations the heat escapists enjoyed an average holiday duration of 13 days and their trips are a little more planned, as they booked 31 days in advance on average.

Travellers motivated by adventure experiences and tours opted for  far-flung destinations including: Kuala Lumpur, Yerevan, Sarajevo and Nairobi in 2018. They booked shorter trips and on average travelled for just five days at a time. Adventures still travelled in the most popular months of July, August and December.

In 2018, those couples on their honeymoons, perhaps unsurprisingly booked the furthest in advance of their travel departure; planning to escape 36 days ahead on average. Many of the honeymooners opted for city destinations of Istanbul, Bali, Bangkok and Phuket and the average stay was 23 days.

Those individuals working in the Middle East away from their families or out of their country of birth, which tajawal describes as home seekers booked long visits back to their home countries of: Manila, Kochi, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Staying for an average of 44 days during the summer months of June, July and August, homeseekers were very prepared and booked 35 days in advance to ensure competitive pricing on their travel plans.

Commenting on tajawal’s third anniversary, Muzzammil Ahussain, Executive Vice President - tajawal said, “We’re celebrating three years of success at tajawal and feel proud to have established ourselves as a leading player in the Middle East online travel sector. We have created a platform that resonates with a variety of audiences and look forward to providing even more products and services for our wide range of customers, in an attempt to redefine the way people in the Middle East travel.”

In 2019, tajawal will continue to keep customers’ needs the key priority by offering options that suit all interests. In celebration of the third anniversary, tajawal is offering special discounts up to 10% off flights by using the code TAJAWAL3 when booking until 22 January 2019. The discount is on all airlines on tajawal.ae and the UAE version of the tajawal app.

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© Press Release 2019