Travelling with friends may sound fun — until money gets involved.
In fact, one in three Singaporeans have gotten into disputes over travel expenses after a group trip, according to survey findings released by multi-currency payment platform YouTrip on Thursday (Sept 17).
These conflicts were enough to put them off group trips altogether, with 21 per cent saying they would not travel with the same group again.
So what exactly are people fighting about? Settling shared expenses is the root of the disputes, the survey found.
Among the 1,000 respondents surveyed, the top reasons for such disagreements are late repayments (54 per cent), followed by incorrect calculations (53 per cent), and unfair splitting of expenses (49 per cent).
The survey also found that larger groups (six travellers or more) are one-and-a-half times more likely to clash over group expenses than those travelling in pairs.
“Accountant” versus “post-trip payer”
The survey also asked respondents to identify the roles they typically take on during a group trip.
“Accountants” are the ones who usually pay upfront and manage the group’s expenses, while “post-trip payers” settle what they owe after returning from the trip.
The former is not a highly-sought role, with one-third of them saying that they took it on reluctantly. 45 per cent also said they spend more than a day settling expenses after a trip.
Reluctant “accountants” were also four times more likely to end a friendship over travel expenses, the survey found.
Beyond calculating expenses, the biggest pain point for “accountants” is getting friends to reimburse them. Sending awkward payment reminders ranked as their top concern (54 per cent).
This is followed by the risk of losing personal money due to inaccurate tracking (53 per cent) and sorting through multiple receipts (47 per cent).
Interestingly, receiving payment reminders is ranked as the lowest concern among “post-trip payers”.
“This disconnect suggests that what feels like an awkward interaction for the person asking to be paid back may feel far less significant to the party receiving the reminder,” YouTrip noted.
Another factor contributing to money disputes in group trips? The burden of keeping group expenses in order.
The survey found that “accountants” were more likely to have experienced a money dispute (35 per cent) as compared to ‘post-trip payers’ (30 per cent). This suggests that those who take responsibility for managing the group’s expenses bear more of the friction.
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Overspending during group trips
Settling the bill is not the only problem either.
88 per cent of respondents said that they exceeded their personal budgets while travelling in a group.
For most of them (68 per cent), the reason for overspending was simply because they were “living in the moment”.
Other reasons include losing track of who paid for what (37 per cent), the hassle of tracking expenses in real time (35 per cent) and the lack of a real-time overview of group spending (30 per cent).
When asked what would improve their group travel experience, the respondents’ top preferences were a simpler accounting process (67 per cent) and eliminating manual tracking (67 per cent), as well as having an all-in-one balance overview (65 per cent).
Addressing these issues, the platform has rolled out the new feature YouTrip Split, which allows users to create groups, select transactions from their payment history and divide expenses among members.
“This makes shared expenses visible and manageable as they happen, rather than turning them into a dreaded administrative exercise once the holiday is over,” said YouTrip chief operating officer Kelvin Lam.
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