Singapore travellers pick Taipei as best place to celebrate NYE

SINGAPORE - Taipei's mega New Year's Eve celebrations and affordable hotel rates have made it the most popular city for Singapore travellers to spend the once-in-a-year occasion.

According to reviews online, Taipei rings in the new year with an outdoor countdown concert and fires up the biggest fireworks party at the iconic Taipei 101 building.

During this festive high-peak season, hotel rates in Taipei are up by about 47 per cent with an average price of $252 for a night's stay, according to travel site TripAdvisor.

Most expensive on the list for hotels is in Hong Kong - the second most popular destination. The rates soared close to a 200 per cent increase during this New Year's eve period with an average nightly price of $686.

At fourth spot, Bangkok was shown to have the cheapest average hotel rates of $98, with a 18 per cent increase during this festive period, said TripAdvisor.

The survey revealed that many Singapore travellers chose to holiday at regional cities with the farthest destinations being Sydney and Osaka, which came in at fifth and 10th positions respectively.

Beach holidays are also a popular choice for the New Year break with Seminyak, Phuket and Boracay coming in at seventh, eighth and ninth spots respectively.

While most are going away, many have also chosen to stay home with Singapore coming in at third spot. The lion city also has the least inflation of hotel rates on a global scale at only 4 per cent. The average nightly hotel rate stands at about $259.

Meanwhile, on a global scale, cosmopolitan cities London, New York and Paris were selected as the top three most popular destination to celebrate New Year's by travellers around the world.

London and Paris also had the second lowest percentage increase for nightly hotel prices during the New Year period at 5 per cent.

Asian cities Bangkok and Singapore came in as the 10th and 15th most popular holiday spots respectively for global travellers, said TripAdvisor.

The survey results were based on traveller searches on TripAdvisor for the NYE period of Dec 27, 2014 to Jan 4, 2015.

wjeanne@sph.com.sg