Business or pleasure, most travellers seem to love Tokyo, Japan. (Photo Credit: Tosakarin/GettyImages)YouGov, an international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm, recently conducted a study for premium luggage brand Samsonite on 500 Singaporean business travellers. The company wanted to find out their favourite business and leisure destinations across the world, and the results have just been released.
Business-wise, travellers in Singapore rated Tokyo and Bangkok as their top business travel destinations at 16% and 14% respectively. Interestingly enough, the same two cities occupy the top two spots for favourite leisure destinations at 20% and 18% respectively. Rounding up the top five for business travel destinations are Hong Kong at 12% and London, New York City and Shanghai tying at 8%.
Leisure-wise, the ranking is roughly the same but with some exceptions. London and Hong Kong now rank third and fourth at 10% and 8%, while Melbourne comes in at 7%.
Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that the study also looked at the least favourite business travel destinations among Singaporean business travellers. Two Indian cities, Mumbai and Bangalore, topped the list at 19% and 14% a piece, with Jakarta (13%), Hong Kong (7%) and Shanghai (6%) rounding out the top five.
But the study was a lot more than just destinations. For example, Samsonite found that one in five (22%) of Singaporeans enjoy overseas business travel a lot, 30% like it a little and 37% are ambivalent.
The Smoother Journeys survey revealed some surprising insights," said Satish Peerubandi, general manager - Samsonite Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines & IndoChina. "For starters, we were surprised to see how strongly Asian cities did. We were also happy to see that a majority enjoyed business travel, even as it has a reputation for being tough for those who travel often. Only 11% of respondents said they did not enjoy business travel, with the majority liking it for the opportunities it brings." Among those that enjoy business travel, 94% said they like to visit new places, 91% said they like leaving Singapore for a short time, and 88% said they like working in new environments.
However, at the end of the day, Singaporean business travellers still like being back home. While 60% said they believe they travel 'just the right amount', many still crave their home comforts. Being apart from family and fear of missing out on what is happening at home topped the reasons for people disliking business travel.