Vietnamese to boost spending in dining: survey
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Vietnam tops Asia-Pacific in increased spending on dining and entertainment, fashion and accessories, and fitness and wellness for the next six months, according to the Mastercard Survey on Consumer Purchasing Priorities.
The survey, released twice yearly, was conducted from 13 September to 11 November 2010, involving 10,502 consumers from 24 markets across Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa.
In the latest survey, 69 percent of respondents in Asia-Pacific see dining and entertainment as their biggest spending priority in the next 6 months.
The rate is four percent higher than that in the last survey, keeping dining and entertainment at the top spot in consumer purchasing priorities in two consecutive years.
Vietnam takes the lead in the region, with 89 percent of Vietnamese respondents saying they would continue to give their top spending priority to dining and entertainment, followed by Korea (78 percent) and Hong Kong (75 percent).
A similar trend is also observed in all six Middle East nations. Egypt tops the region with 98 percent of their respondents placing dining and entertainment at the top of their purchasing priorities, the highest rate for the entire survey.
In Africa, Morocco ranks first with 70 percent of its surveyed customers considering dining and entertainment as their most important spending priority.
With respect to fashion and accessories, Vietnam tops the Asia-Pacific area, with 78 percent of Vietnamese respondents planning to spend more in this category, followed by China (64 percent), Singapore (58 percent), New Zealand (53 percent) and Australia (50 percent).
Vietnam also has the highest percentage of consumers (69 percent) in Asia Pacific planning to increase their spending in fitness and wellness in the coming six months.
In terms of maintaining the same level of discretionary spending in the 6 months ahead, Vietnam has the largest percentage of respondents (62 percent) saying they would do so, followed by Australia and South Korea (59 percent each).
According to the MasterCard Worldwide Index of Consumer Purchasing Resilience, the most resilient category for discretionary spending is private tuition and extracurricular activities for one’s children.
The category was the most resilient in half of the markets surveyed, with the highest Index scores for the Asia/Pacific going to India (95.7), Vietnam (92.7) and Indonesia (88.9).
