Ctrip publishes Skyscanner report on World Cup travel trends

Chinese travel agency produces analysis of metasearch site’s data Continue reading →

Chinese travel agency Ctrip has published  a reported in partnerships with its Skyscanner metasearch brand detailing football fans’ travel habits during the recent World Cup in Russia.

The Summer 2018 Global Football Fan Travel Trends Report uses Skyscanner data on global air ticket bookings to offer insights.

The report particularly focuses on Chinese travellers but describes travel, flight and consumption preferences of fans from all over the world who went to Russia for the tournament.

According to the data from Skyscanner, the report shows that nearly 600,000 football fans from 83 countries visited Russia for the World Cup.

The largest number of football fans came from South Korea, which accounted for 13.4% of total supporters travelling to Russia, followed by Germany (12.4%), Spain (5.2%) and Israel (5%).

Travellers from all over the world spent an average of 17 days in Russia during their trip. The most popular Russian city for football fans to visit was Moscow, followed by St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, and Ekaterinburg respectively.

The average price for flights to Russia during the summer period between mid-June to mid-July was about £600.

The most expensive flights from were from Mexico, costing an average of almost £1,600 a ticket, followed by flights from the US which cost an average of nearly £1,200.

Football fans from Mexico booked their flight tickets an average of 137 days before departure, which was well in advance of the global average of 80 days.

According to the report, the lowest air fares on average were for booking of 50 days in advance.

The report finds 40,000 of the total 600,000 football fans who travelled to Russia originated from China, 10 times more than when the tournament was last held in Brazil.

According to Ctrip’s customer profile data, Chinese travelers spent an average of 13 days in Russia and most came from tier Chinese 1 cities.

Chinese fans who visited Russia during the period also tended to go sightseeing during their stay, visiting attractions such as the Red Square, the Winter Palace and the Kremlin, and went shopping at duty free stores.

The majority of Chinese football fans (77.2%) who travelled went alone, with 16.5% travelling with one other person.

Chinese travellers also cared more on average about comfort during their flight, with 1.7% and 0.3% choosing business or first-class respectively, which is well above the global average of only 0.13%.