According to a new ForwardKeys report for the World Travel Market (WTM), worldwide air travel is expected to reach 65 per cent of pre-pandemic levels in the third quarter of the year — July, August, and September — in 2019. According to ForwardKeys, the revival is uneven, with certain parts of the world doing better than others and some forms of travel, particularly beach vacations, faring far better than metropolitan city visits and sightseeing.
Africa and the Middle East are on track to rebound the most robustly; arrivals in the third quarter are predicted to be 83% of 2019 levels. It is followed by the Americas, where summer arrivals are expected to exceed 76%, followed by Europe (71%) and the Asia Pacific (35%).
Comparing the top 10 beach and urban destinations in Europe based on Q3 flight reservations compared to 2019 exemplifies the current preference for beach vacations. All of those on the beach list, which is led by Antalya (81%), Tirana (36%), and Mikonos (29%), are experiencing extremely high demand, but only Naples leads the urban list. Furthermore, the four leading urban destinations, Naples (5% ahead), Istanbul (flat), Athens (5% behind), and Lisbon (8% behind), are all also entrance to beach resorts.
A similar pattern can be seen in the Americas, where Q3 bookings for air travel to the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico are 5% higher than in 2019, while bookings to South America and the US and Canada are 25% and 31% lower, respectively. Costa Rica, which is 24 per cent ahead, Jamaica, which is 17 per cent ahead, and the Dominican Republic, which is 13 per cent ahead, are the locations that are expected to perform the best.
The desire to travel globally again is so great that an increase in airfares has done little to kerb demand. For example, the average fare from the United States to Europe increased by more than 35% between January and May, with no discernible reduction in booking rates. These fares were roughly 60% higher than the previous year. Airfares for shorter-distance, intraregional travel (i.e., within the Americas) grew by 47 per cent, less than for long-distance travel. The demand for those tickets, though, soared in March.
American travellers are likely to stay longer and spend more than they did in 2019, but not as much as they did during the pandemic, which is good news for the travel industry and many destinations.
In the third quarter, the average anticipated duration of stay is 12 days, up from 11 days in 2019. It was 16 days last year, but fewer people with a more affluent profile travelled then. The proportion of passengers flying in premium cabin classes is also expected to climb in Q3, from 12% in 2019 to 15% this year (although it reached 19 per cent in 2021).
Several reasons contribute to the relatively optimistic forecast for summer travel to Africa and the Middle East. Several Middle Eastern airports serve as hubs for travel between the Asia Pacific and Europe, allowing the Middle East to benefit from the rebirth of intercontinental travel, driven primarily by people returning to European countries to see friends and relatives.
Russian airspace closure has also contributed to an increase in hub traffic. Cairo has improved access to European markets, putting it 23 per cent ahead. Expats are returning to see friends and family in Nigeria (14% ahead), Ghana (8% ahead), and the Ivory Coast (1% ahead), all of which have big diasporas in Europe and the United States. Tanzania is 3 per cent ahead, Cape Verde is flat, and Seychelles is only 2 per cent behind in drawing long-haul visitors from Europe.
Travel to and within the Asia Pacific area is recovering more slowly due to stricter COVID-19 travel restrictions continuing in effect for longer.
“With 2022 seeing travel restrictions eased, connectivity re-established, and consumer confidence returned, demand for international travel is on the rise, signalling a break from the domestic travel pattern that has dominated in previous years,” said Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys. In the third quarter of this year, holidaymakers are more eager to escape the pandemic with a calm beach vacation than they are to absorb culture, cities, and sightseeing.”
Source: ForwardKeys