Travelzoo's Global Head of Brand, Sharry Sun, to Present Consumer Survey on "Overcrowding" at ITB Berlin

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Mar 06, 2019, 06:37 ET

BERLIN and NEW YORK and SHANGHAI, March 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to the world's growing problem of "Overcrowding", Travelzoo® (NASDAQ: TZOO), a global publisher of exclusive offers and experiences for members, will present today at ITB Berlin the results of a new international consumer survey, with its Global Head of Brand, Sharry Sun, stressing the relevance of Travelzoo's service. Travelzoo's mission and business have always been to inspire and activate people to travel to destinations and times where and when there is excess inventory, thereby playing a crucial role in driving more evenly spread-out demand for destinations and suppliers.

"Overcrowding" of destinations means that too many tourists are travelling to the same destinations, leading to environmental and social problems. The problem was first covered in 2017 in a report by McKinsey & Company and the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), 'Coping with success: Managing overcrowding in tourism destinations'. By 2020, the 20 most popular countries will add more international arrivals than the rest of the world combined. Now, in partnership with ITB, the world's most important tourism industry conference, and advised by Professor Dr. Roland Conrady, Scientific Director of the ITB Berlin Congress, Travelzoo has conducted an international survey* to gather and analyse the feelings and opinions of travellers on the subject of "Overcrowding".

Sharry Sun, Global Head of Brand at Travelzoo, will present key findings from the research at the session "Overtourism: The Global Tourist's View" today at ITB in Berlin at 1 p.m. CET in City Cube Club, ITB Congress.

Travelzoo's and ITB's survey of 8,000 consumers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. found:

69% believe that protecting the local environment from tourists' damage is one of the most important issues of our time
52% of consumers are more concerned about the effect on local residence and infrastructure than a degraded travel experience for themselves
65% of consumers said they'd be open to travelling at less busy times of the year
43% of consumers said they are interested in supporting local brands, local small businesses, and local culture

The survey also found travellers are willing to pay a premium to tackle the problem of "Overcrowding":

76% of Germans, 69% of the French, and 61% of the Spanish would pay an extra EUR 100 to EUR 300 to stay away from overcrowded destinations
42% of Japanese would pay an extra JPY 30,000 to stay away from overcrowded destinations
41% of Canadians would pay and extra CAD 500 to stay away from overcrowded destinations
31% of Chinese would pay an extra CNY 4,000 to stay away from overcrowded destinations
28% of British would pay an extra GBP 500 to stay away from overcrowded destinations
19% of U.S. travellers would pay USD 1,000 to stay away from overcrowded destinations

"These results show it will become increasingly important for consumers to see alternative choices of destinations," said Travelzoo's Sharry Sun. "This is exactly what Travelzoo has always been specializing in. It is just becoming more relevant."

"The interesting insight for us from the data is that a significant number of consumers are willing to pay more to stay away from overcrowded destinations. When promoting destinations with excess inventory, Travelzoo has always managed to provide its members with irresistible offers at lower prices. We would like to invite all these consumers to Travelzoo to see how they can stay away from overcrowded destinations and enjoy very attractive prices at the same time."

Overcrowding is an imbalance between supply and demand fundamentally. When we face the imbalance, increasing the supply by investing in building more hotels, offering more cruises, or opening more restaurants might seem like an immediate solution. In the meantime, shifting the tourists' demand by applying pricing discriminative strategies is often in discussion too.

Travelzoo proposes a more sustainable and achievable strategy to help match the demand with the supply within its best capacity by negotiating special offers with hotels, airlines and local businesses for its members to enjoy quality travel at lower prices when they visit lesser-known destinations or explore popular places during off seasons. "Travelzoo will continue to leverage its know-how to set trends, direct demand as well as to enable members to enjoy new and old destinations in a creative, smart and responsible way," adds Sun.

In 1998, Travelzoo, founded by journalist Ralph Bartel, pioneered the service and business of inspiring and activating people to travel at less busy times by presenting irresistible offers. Travelzoo not only got tens of millions of people spontaneously "off the couch" and traveling (which was Mr. Bartel's mission) but also created substantial incremental and different demand for the industry. Twenty years later, Travelzoo's service is becoming more relevant than ever.

About the Survey
The global and representative online survey was conducted in January 2019 by the market research institute Norstat. 8,000 people consumers aged 18 and over in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. Multiples answers were possible for some questions.

About Travelzoo
Travelzoo® provides our 28 million members insider deals and one-of-a-kind experiences personally reviewed by one of our deal experts around the globe. With 25 offices worldwide, we have our finger on the pulse of outstanding travel, entertainment, and lifestyle experiences. For over 15 years, we have worked in partnership with more than 2,000 top travel suppliers—our long-standing relationships give Travelzoo members access to the very best deals.

Travelzoo and Top 20 are registered trademarks of Travelzoo. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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SOURCE Travelzoo