After a turbulent two years, new research from the Mastercard Economics Institute reveals that global leisure and business flight bookings have surpassed pre-pandemic levels, while spending on cruise lines, buses and trains saw sharp improvements this year.
A new report, Travel 2022: Trends and Transitions, delivers critical insights across 37 markets about the global state of travel in a post-vaccine and less restricted chapter of the pandemic era.
Importantly, according to the analysis, if flight booking trends continue at their current pace, an estimated 115 million more passengers in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa will fly in 2022 compared to last year. Drawing on a unique analysis of publicly available travel data as well as aggregated and anonymized sales activity in the Mastercard network, the report dives into key elements of the traveller’s journey.
Key findings through April 2022 include:
- Travel spending shifts back to experiences over things: For the better part of a year, international tourists spent more on experiences instead of souvenirs when in a destination. Experiential spending is now 34% above 2019 levels; the areas seeing the largest spending increases are bars and nightclubs (72%) and amusement parks, museums, concerts and other recreational activities (35%). In South Africa, although both spending on goods and experiences tend to trend similarly, growth in spending on experiences relative to 2019 levels has sustained around a 20 percentage point lead over goods spend since January 2022.
- Domestic travel choices still lead among consumers in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa: Since the onset of the pandemic, domestic travel has been the itinerary of choice for consumers in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, although the recovery has been haphazard. Domestic bookings surged and doubled pre-pandemic levels at the end of November 2020, collapsed in January 2021, jumped to more than 20% above pre-pandemic levels in February 2021, and collapsed again in mid-2021 before staging a more steady and sustained recovery. It exceeded pre-pandemic levels from February 2022.
- Loosening of restrictions recalibrates tourism map for 2022: Not surprisingly, the ability and convenience of travel has been a driving factor in booking destinations, though 2022 has provided a clean slate with restrictions loosened in much of the world, aside from parts of Asia-Pacific. The result is that the U.S., U.K, Switzerland, Spain and The Netherlands are now the top destinations for tourists globally. For travellers from Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, the United Kingdom has been the choice destination in the ongoing recovery, with demand exceeding that of the United States.
Bricklin Dwyer, Mastercard chief economist and head of the Mastercard Economics Institute commented: ‘The resilience of the consumer to return to “normal” and make up for lost time gives us optimism that the recovery will continue directionally, even if there are bumps along the way.’
Picture: Getaway gallery
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