The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and Trip.com Group have published Trending in Travel, a report of the latest trends in traveller behaviour and predicted booking patterns in the wake of COVID-19. Among other projections, global international spending on travel is forecast to rise by 93.8% next year (compared with this year) as destinations ease restrictions and vaccination rates rise.
This is after a 69.4% decrease in spend from 2019 to 2020, and a projected rise of just 9.3% for this year from 2020.
The report also reveals how severe and confusing travel restrictions around the world have driven a significant rise in domestic tourism, with a surge in domestic hotel bookings of more than 200% on Trip.com this year compared with 2019.
Data shows that younger travellers are the first to return to travel when regulations allow. There is now an increased demand for longer stays, fee-free cancellations are especially important, and there is a continuous high demand for health and safety checks throughout trips.
To avoid travel restrictions, travellers are seeking secondary destinations – slightly less popular choices for trips away from traditional holiday spots. Abu Dhabi in the UAE, Chiang Mai in Thailand, Doha in Qatar, Florence in Italy, and Frankfurt in Germany were the most popular secondary destinations in their respective countries this year.
The report goes on to show that bookings for ‘the great outdoors’ will predominate in the short and medium term. In China, for example – one of the world’s largest travel markets – nature-related attraction bookings increased by 265% in the first half of 2021 compared with the same period in 2020.
The pause in travel has also increased consumers’ eagerness to travel more sustainably, with 83% of global travellers now saying they would make sustainable travel a priority in the future.
Additionally, 70% of travellers in many major countries such as the US, Spain, the UK, Canada, and Japan plan to spend more on travel in 2022 than they have in the last five years, even including 2019 – one of the best years on record for travel and tourism.
