Booking.com said apac travelers are changing how they book trips, with 44% having canceled or changed plans in the past 12 months because of extreme weather or natural disasters. The report also finds more travelers are avoiding crowds and shifting travel outside peak season.
Danielle D’Silva, Booking.com’s director of sustainability, said travelers are now adapting to extreme weather and actively avoiding crowds. She said: “This year’s Travel & Sustainability Report shows that while generations may have different understandings of what constitutes more sustainable travel, adapting to extreme weather and actively avoiding crowds are now norms at all ages”.
Booking.com Travel Report
Booking.com released its 11th annual Travel & Sustainability Report, based on responses from 32,500 travelers across 35 markets globally. In Asia-Pacific, 88% of travelers across all ages said more sustainable travel is important or very important to them, and 47% said they plan to travel outside peak season.
The report also shows a generational split in stated plans for the next 12 months. Forty-eight percent of Boomers in APAC said they want to travel more sustainably, compared with 68% of Gen X respondents, 76% of Millennials and 80% of Gen Z respondents.
Extreme Weather and APAC
Extreme weather is already shaping destination and timing choices. Seventy-nine percent of survey respondents said they consider extreme weather risk when choosing a destination, and the same share said they consider it when choosing the timing of a trip.
In Asia-Pacific, 74% said they actively avoid destinations known for extreme weather, while 68% said extreme weather is stressful when booking and 64% said unpredictable weather makes it hard to know when to travel. Forty-four percent reported canceling or changing trip plans in the past 12 months because of extreme weather or natural disasters.
Overcrowding and Cooler Destinations
Crowding is shaping choices alongside weather. Booking.com said 40% of travelers in Asia-Pacific plan to avoid overcrowded tourist destinations, 28% will seek out cooler destinations and 36% of those choosing quieter destinations said they want to avoid contributing to overtourism.
Among those traveling outside peak season, 33% said they want to reduce pressure on destinations. The report also found that 56% of those surveyed said certain destinations had become too hot to travel to when they wanted to visit them, and 63% said they had removed destinations from their wish list after news of extreme weather or natural disasters.
D’Silva said: “We are encouraged by the broad range of ways travellers are already traveling more sustainably, and how they plan to continue”. Booking.com said travelers booked 100 million room nights at properties with a third-party sustainability certification in 2025, as the report points to behavior changes that are already showing up in booking choices.
