BANGKOK, 20 August 2012:

Thailand is gaining ground as a business travel destination in the Asia Pacific region, while it ranks top for attracting the most female business travellers, according to the latest Accor Asia-Pacific Business Traveller Research.

Last week, Accor revealed its research on business travellers in the Asia-Pacific for the first half of 2012. Based on the group's loyalty reward programme, it gained feedback through an online survey involving 2,586 people in nine countries in Asia Pacific. The study ran from 10 to 16 July. The top spend on business travel went to Singapore, followed by India and Hong Kong based on average length of stay and daily spend on accommodation.

Across the Asia Pacific region, Hong Kong remained the top business travel destination, followed by Singapore, while Thailand gained recognition as an emerging destination in Southeast Asia. It gained positive feedback from respondents in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and Singapore.

The research also reflected trends in outbound travel, indicating 37% of Thai business travellers ,who responded to the survey, made business trips to Singapore (37%), Hong Kong (26%) and Malaysia (22%) during the first half of 2012.

Travel trends for the second half of the year suggest 40% of Thai business travellers will visit Singapore, 34% Hong Kong and 28% Japan.

Japan made gains during the first half of the year as a business travel destination, up from a ranking of six to three.

Thailand gained a mention for attracting the most female business travellers (40%), while Australia and New Zealand came in second and third place; 33% and 30%. India gained the lowest ranking in this segment with just 6% of those answering the survey.

Average number of trips also increased in most markets except for Singapore . Thailand ranked fourth in generating trips, up from five to nine trips. The top three countries that had the most business trips in the first six-month of this year were China (nine to 17), India (seven to 13) and Indonesia (six to 10).

On the prompts that generate travel the top three for Thai travellers were: Business has increased since last year (45%); role changed or shift in position (43%) and increases in sales and marketing effort required business trips (30%).

On requirements that determine the hotel choice, the top three answers across all cities were: The hotel is near the business venue (53%), free Wi-Fi connection (49%) and competitive rates (46%). Looking at Thai market, Thai business travellers prefer free Wi-Fi connections the most (60%), followed by location near business venue (50%), loyalty card membership (40%) and competitive rates (39%). Countries where respondents shared the same priority for free Wi-Fi connections were Singapore (63%), Malaysia (62%) and Hong Kong (57%), while countries like Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia preferred location ahead of free internet services.

In terms of spending, Thailand ranked sixth in the average hotel allowance per night at US$107, down from US$112 in last year's survey. The top three spenders on accommodation were Australia (US$173, up from US$158), Singapore (US$156, up from US$134) and India (US$133, up from US$128). However, when average spending was multiplied by average length of stay, Singapore ranked top with a spending of US$468, followed by India (US$399) and Hong Kong (US$387). Thailand ranking remanded unchanged with a spend of US$321.