Two-thirds of the Bangladeshi travellers consider air travel to be the safest mode of transportation during Covid-19.
The information was revealed on Wednesday in an opinion poll conducted by The Bangladesh Monitor, a travel and tourism publication.
According to the survey, a total of 66.7% of the passengers who participated in the survey chose air travel as the safest option amid the Covid-19 pandemic, while 23.3% opted for trains.
In terms of challenges, 37.7% of the respondents felt that restoring passengers' confidence was the biggest one, 33.5% said it was maintaining health and hygiene, while 28.8% of respondents thought the biggest challenge lay with the travel restrictions in place.
The survey showed that 49.9% respondents felt that high cost was the biggest concern with air travel in Bangladesh at this moment, while 31.4% mentioned personal safety and 18.7% thought it was the protocols at the airports.
In addition, 57% people felt that health and hygiene standards in local airlines were perfect, while 30.7% considered it satisfactory and the rest 12.3% said it was not up to the standards at all.
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According to the survey, 35.8% of the respondents said they would travel for business purposes while 30.5% said they would travel for leisure and 33.7% for family tours.
The survey also revealed that 25.5% said they would not travel this year while 32.9% regular domestic travellers had already travelled and 41.6% were considering traveling in the next three months.
The survey also mentioned that, In case of international travel, 53.5% would go abroad for travelling during the pandemic while 29.4% would do so for business and 17.1% for medical purposes.
59% holiday seekers preferred to make their dream holidays in Asia in the post Covid-19 situation, while 32.1% preferred Europe and 8.2% Americas.
In the survey, a total of 39.6% of participants said India was their first destination for medical purposes while 31.7% opted for Thailand, and 28.7% for Singapore.
According to the survey, 47.1% of the people said they would not plan an outbound trip until a vaccine arrived while 43.3% said they had plans to go abroad in the next three months, and 9.6% had already travelled.
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When asked how they preferred buying air tickets during the pandemic, 68.3% of the people preferred to buy their tickets through an online travel agency (OTA), 22.4% liked to buy from a traditional travel agency, while 9.3% were more interested in buying tickets directly from the airline.
A total of 4,452 respondents took part in the online survey, which was conducted between September 1 and 25.
Of the respondents, 26% were between 20-30 years, 22% between 31 and 40, 20% between 41 and 50, 18% belonged to the 51-60 years age group, and the rest were over 60. 87% of the respondents were from business while 10% were service-job holders and 3% were students.
