The rising in travel is starting to pick back up again in 2022. We’re not quite at 2019 levels again, but we’re getting closer with each passing week.
While business travelers are hitting the road for meetings, conferences, and sales presentations, leisure travelers are leaving home to have a little bit of fun, rest, and relaxation.
The summer travel outlook report, produced for the World Travel Market (WTM) by ForwardKeys, reveals that in the third quarter of the year, July, August, and September, global air travel is set to reach 65% of where it was before the pandemic in 2019.
However, according to the report, some parts of the world are doing much better than others, while some types of travel, particularly beach holidays, are much more popular than urban city visits and sightseeing.
The region of the world that is on course to recover most strongly is Africa & the Middle East as their arrivals in Q3 are expected to reach 83% of 2019 levels.
The Americas follow where summer arrivals are expected to reach 76%, then by Europe, 71%, and the Asia Pacific, at 35%.
The reports also point out that the rise in airfares did not dampen demand, as many would have expected, as enthusiasm to travel again internationally, is so strong that airfares have done relatively little to dampen demand.
The relatively promising outlook for summer travel to Africa and the Middle East is due to a combination of factors.
Several Middle Eastern airports act as hubs for travel between Athe Asia-Pacific and Europe, which has led to the Middle East benefiting from the revival of intercontinental travel, particularly driven by people returning to Asian countries to visit friends and relatives.
The closure of Russian airspace has also contributed to the uplift in hub traffic. Cairo, 23% ahead, has increased connectivity to European markets. Nigeria, 14% ahead, Ghana, 8% ahead, and Ivory Coast, 1% ahead, with large diasporas in Europe and the US, are seeing ex-pats return to visit friends and family.
Tanzania, 3% ahead, Cape Verde, flat, and Seychelles, just 2% behind, are successfully attracting long-haul visitors from Europe.
Travel to and within the Asia Pacific region is recovering more slowly, owing to stiffer COVID-19 travel restrictions remaining in force for a prolonged period.
Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys, said: “With 2022 seeing travel restrictions lifted, connectivity re-established, and consumer confidence regained, demand for international travel is on the rise once more, marking a departure from the domestic travel trend that dominated in recent years. In Q3 this year, holidaymakers are relatively much keener to leave the pandemic behind with a relaxing break on the beach than they are to consume culture, cities, and sightseeing.”
