Our friends from data.ai recently shared data that shows that the usage of travel and navigation apps in APAC has steadily increased since January of this year with app downloads increasing since last year.
In fact, global downloads of mobile travel apps surpassed 1.4 billion from January to May 2022 ahead of the peak travel season, up 25% YoY. This includes both travel and accommodation mobile apps worldwide as well as related services.
READ MORE: Here are the best travel apps to plan your trip this year
In APAC, in particular, there has been strong growth from different segments of the mobile travel apps category. This is true all over the world, with major travel markets like the US also showing strong figures including a 54% increase in downloads for airline apps in the market and a steady increase for all their major mobile travel apps like booking.com and more.
To better understand the growth in the region, we take a look at what travellers in APAC are downloading and what this means for the region.
What are mobile travel apps?
A mobile travel app is a mobile version of a travel website or service that you can download to use for specific travel services. Anything from booking hotels and flights to activities and more.
As we conduct more of our work over the phone, mobile travel apps have become extremely pervasive in our regular travel process and most consumers use them for some aspect of their travel journey.
This also includes booking activities and travel-related services, such as taxis from the airport, tickets to rides or tourist attractions, and many more services. In APAC, some of the apps that you might be familiar with include Klook, Trip, AirAsia and many more.
Total downloads of mobile travel apps
Between the months of January to May in 2022, travellers in APAC downloaded 624.2 million travel apps. This is compared to the global downloads of 1.4 billion, which puts APAC at around 44% of the global downloads of mobile travel apps in the first few months of the year.
This is overall a great sign for the industry, as more people are open to travel and indicates a strong desire to travel in the near future, if not already.
Airline apps are very popular
The top 5 APAC mobile travel apps in the airline category during the first four months of 2022 totalled 5.26 million downloads. Across both iOS and Google Play, this was a 31% increase compared to the same category and period last year.
This was expected given the opening of borders, but the strong results are a good sign for airlines that faced a lot of issues. The top 5 airline apps in APAC currently are:
- goIndiGo.in
- AirAsia
- China Southern Airlines
- China Eastern Airlines
- S7 Airlines
READ MORE: Here’s why you need a multi currency app for your travels
Hotel booking apps are showing strong growth
APAC travellers downloaded about 24.0 million hotel booking apps in the region. This is a 37% increase compared to last year. The growth for this segment is a bit stronger but expected as usage during the pandemic could still have continued given the increase in staycation and hotels offering different services.
The top 5 hotel booking apps in APAC are:
- OYO Rooms
- Traveloka
- Booking.com
- Agoda
- Ctrip
What’s next for travellers
We can expect this trend to continue as borders remain open and restrictions abate. More travellers can be expected to use mobile apps for their booking hotels, flights and more during the next few months.
