Things travelers can't live without: Mobile phones = Asians; Credit cards = Westerners

MANILA, Philippines – Agoda.com, one of Asia’s leading hotel booking sites and part of Nasdaq-listed Priceline Group (Nasdaq:PCLN), has announced the results of their latest global survey, which reveals that Asians don’t want to forget their mobile phones on vacation while Westerners don’t want to forget their credit cards.

Agoda Travel Smarts

The survey, conducted online in February 2014, asked over 50,000 Agoda.com customers from all over the world what they least wanted to forget on vacation. Asian and Western travelers, it seems, have different priorities when packing for a trip.  

Forty five percent of travelers from Asia said their mobile phone was the one item they did not want to forget; credit cards came in second with 29% of the vote. But for Europeans and travelers from the Americas, credit cards were far more important than phones. Forty seven percent of travelers from Europe picked credit cards as the item they’d least like to forget; for travelers from the Americas it was 44%. Only 19% of Europeans and travelers from the Americas picked mobile phones. The French* had the largest disparity between these two items -- 58% picked their credit card as the one thing they would least like to forget, while only 9% picked mobile phones.   

  A Good Book Credit Card Laptop/Tablet Mobile Phone Toiletries Other
The Americas 9% 44% 18% 19% 5% 4%
Asia 5% 29% 11% 45% 6% 4%
Europe 9% 47% 13% 19% 5% 5%


Mobile phones were clearly the priority among travelers from Asia, with one exception, the Japanese. They were the only group in Asia* to choose credit cards over mobile phones, 38% to 28%.

Despite all of these differences, travelers from all over the world seemed to agree that toiletries were among the least important items to pack.

*Of countries with 1,000 or more respondents.

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