Traffic on Singapore Airline’s official website grew 195% last year for US-based visitors

Similarweb recently released its annual Digital 100 ranking of the fastest-growing companies on the web, and one of its 10 key categories is Travel and Tourism. Demand for international travel and cruises dominated the list, but growth in deal-minded online travel agents (OTAs) hints that travellers are increasingly conscious of their wallets.

While Capital One Travel led the Digital 100 for Travel last year after boasting extraordinary growth of 774% in web traffic to its online platform, the scenario in the Asian region, specifically Southeast Asia, was very different. 

One of the key takeaways of the report is that international airlines seem to have benefited from pent-up demand in the US, with El Al coming in fifth place with 204% growth and Singapore Air seeing 196% growth, landing it in sixth place. Aerlingus came in seventh with 190% growth. Since this traffic is primarily U.S.-based, it proves that American travelers are highly interested in international travel, after years of Covid related restrictions.

Speaking to WiT, Jim Corridore (Senior Analyst, Similarweb) attributed Singapore Airlines’ popularity to its reputation and Asia’s cautious reopening. “Singapore Air benefits from a couple of things. Number one, they are thought of very well in terms of the quality of their offering in international air travel. At the same time, the story of their growth is largely the reopening trade, and Asia was one of the last regions to reopen and there seems to be a lot of pent-up demand for international travel in general, and to regions in Asia in particular.”

As for online travel agents, Booking.com held the top spot for most website traffic in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam through January 2023. In Singapore and Thailand, Agoda garners most website traffic. However, both websites are neck and neck and constantly switch spots month-to-month. 

Expedia, Marriott, and Airbnb are also in Malaysia’s Top 5 channels that draw US-based traffic. Airbnb isn’t in Singapore’s Top 5, giving its spot to Hotels.com. Domestic platforms Ivivu.com and MyTour.vn also made the Top 5 for Vietnam-based OTAs. 

“Booking is quite simply the behemoth in the industry right now and leads across most geographies”, explains Jim. “They are killing it among OTAs. Agoda has its roots in Southeast Asia, and is well known in the area, and that is likely to continue.” 

The sheer dominance of Booking.com in the region can also be attributed to marketing. According to Jim, “There is some benefit to size, and Booking’s performance has some of that, since they are well known, but they also do invest quite a bit in marketing, and their recent advertising campaign featuring celebrity Idris Elba seems to be helping them as well. Agoda does benefit from being well known in the region, I am not certain of how much they are currently advertising.”

With a scene that’s held by bigger players in the industry, one has to wonder how newer travel platforms can get into the market now that travel is in recovery mode and more opportunities are presenting themselves in this space. Jim said, “New travel platforms can get into the market by having some creative offering that helps consumers find the best deals, or the best quality vacations. Recently Hopper.com came from almost nowhere to take a strong position in the industry. Consumers are always looking for deals, and new places to visit, so the site that helps with that will be able to build share.”

“I think that demand is constantly shifting to new markets, and the key players are doing all they can to be where their consumers want to be”, he added, speaking on brands looking to identify untapped demographics. “I think that new opportunities are more demand driven, and the large OTAs are already in most markets. You can see evidence of shifting demand on our platform, recently demand to Italy has grown sharply out of the U.S.”

When looking back at the top listings over the last year, it’s easy to see Jim’s take on markets continuously shifting and changing. Traffic seems to alternate between different channels, even though they’re commonly held by bigger brands in the scene. 

As such, it’s tough to predict how traffic coming out of the US will behave for the rest of 2023, but Jim believes that international travel will be robust, and numbers will continue to show an upward trend. “I think that international travel demand will be very strong, largely as we have discussed on pent up demand, and some return of business travel. Last year we saw domestic travel be very strong and that is likely to be less strong, as consumers, who were stuck home for a couple of years got back out and explored their own countries, and now are looking to get out of the country. Also, cruises will remain strong and business travel will return, but not quite to prepandemic levels.”