TV Programs and Other Media Inspire Travel

(image: Expedia)

SEOUL, Jun. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — A survey by the global online travel website Expedia found that Koreans preferred to travel to destinations that had been featured on television.

The survey was carried out between June 18 and 22 by querying 600 men and women between the ages of 20 and 59 about their previous travels.

Of the respondents, 53.5 percent said that watching a holiday spot on a travel-related TV show inspired them to visit that destination.

A breakdown of demographics indicated that 47.9 percent of the respondents in their 20s were influenced by TV shows, compared to 59.3 percent of those in their 30s, 55.1 percent of those in their 40s, and 52.7 percent of those in their 50s.

Thus, TV watchers in their 30s were the most influenced by TV travel shows in terms of deciding their next travel destination.

As for the medium of choice, the most popular source was TV programs (57.7 percent), followed by blogs (29.5 percent), Instagram (27.5 percent), shopping channels (26.7 percent), online communities (22.7 percent), YouTube (19.2 percent) and Facebook (18.2 percent).

Some of the features of the holiday destinations on TV programs that attracted respondents were beautiful views (63.5 percent), food (47.5 percent), unfamiliar places (32.5 percent), historical and traditional atmosphere (26.8 percent), and special stories or experiences about the destination (20.3 percent).

Another 56.5 percent of respondents said that they capture and save the contents of travel destinations from social media websites, while 36.7 percent said they would share the information with other people on social media.

Meanwhile, 28.8 percent of respondents stated that when choosing a travel destination, they would consider whether it was a place fit to be uploaded on social media.

To a question asking whether they used social media more often at home or during travel, 21.3 percent of the respondents said they shared more on social media when they were traveling.

The type of contents they preferred to upload to social media were photos (79.3 percent), videos (42.8 percent), and texts (18.7 percent) in that order of preference.

People in their 20s preferred to upload videos the most (50.9 percent) while their interest in posting texts online was the lowest (11.4 percent).

M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)