Thomas Cook expands outlets in Delhi

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January 13, 2022

MUMBAI, 13 January 2022: Thomas Cook (India) Ltd has inaugurated a new Gold Circle Partner (franchise) outlet in Delhi, a move that expands the company’s distribution and reach in Delhi-NCR to 13 consumer access centres.

In a media statement released Wednesday, the company confirmed it now has six owned branches and seven Gold Circle Partner (franchise) outlets serving the financial hub of Laxmi Nagar and nearby residential areas of Nirman Vihar, Karkardooma, Preet Vihar.

“In the new age of travel (Covid-era), customers are understandably seeking the guidance and reassurance of holiday experts to navigate through the complexities and changes in travel and health protocols,” the company noted in its media statement.

The move was also supported by Thomas Cook India’s internal survey that showed a significant 77% of respondents saying they now require guidance from holiday experts to help with their travel plans and requirements.

Additionally, to build consumer confidence in travel, Thomas Cook India has launched the “Assured” Safe Travel Programme – developed in association with Apollo Clinics that ensures best in class travel safety protocols covering every distribution, delivery, and partner touchpoints in the travel ecosystem.

“TravShield” an upgraded safety commitment of only vaccinated staff and co-passengers, among many other precautions, ensuring traveller safety in the pandemic era.

Consumers from Delhi-NCR are displaying a strong travel desire for domestic favourites such as Goa, Andamans, Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. There is also demand for international destinations like the Maldives, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, France, Turkey and Egypt. Key segments driving leisure demand from Delhi-NCR include families, couples, groups of friends/young professionals, and business travellers. Culture and heritage, adventure/outdoor, culinary experiences, and spa/wellness are the top preferred holiday options for consumers from Delhi-NCR.

Thomas Cook’s Gold Circle Partner outlet at Laxmi Nagar in Delhi offers consumers end-to-end travel solutions, including international and domestic holidays (group tours, personalised holidays, cruises.). It also offers value-added services such as travel insurance and visa services.

Thomas Cook (India) Limited president & country head – holidays, MICE, visa, Rajeev Kale said: “Delhi-NCR has always been a key market for us at Thomas Cook India, and we continue to see a strong travel desire from the region. We are delighted to announce the launch of our new Gold Circle Partner franchise outlet at Laxmi Nagar’s financial hub. We intend to accelerate demand while supporting our customers across segments including families, couples, groups of friends, young professionals, business travellers and local trade associations.”

About Thomas Cook (India) Limited

Set up in 1881, Thomas Cook India Limited is the leading integrated travel and travel-related financial services company in the country offering a broad spectrum of services that include Foreign Exchange, Corporate Travel, MICE, Leisure Travel, Value Added Services, Visa and Passport services.

It operates leading B2C and B2B brands including Thomas Cook, SOTC, TCI, SITA, Asian Trails( Bangkok, Thailand), Allied T Pro, Australian Tours Management, Desert Adventures, Luxe Asia, Travel Circle International Limited, Sterling Holiday Resorts Limited, Distant Frontiers, TC Tours, Digiphoto Entertainment Imaging (DEI), Go Vacation, Private Safaris East & South Africa

As one of the largest travel service provider networks headquartered in the Asia-Pacific region, the Thomas Cook India Group spans 25 countries across five continents.

Norwegian tweaks its loyalty perks

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TTR WEEKLY

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January 13, 2022

SINGAPORE, 13 January 2022: Norwegian Cruise Line has enhanced its Latitudes Rewards Programme for cruise fans, featuring a redesigned tier structure to make achieving the next status easier while adding more benefits.

The refreshed programme now features seven tiers, including a brand-new Diamond status and Sapphire, which replaces the previous Platinum Plus tier.

Almost all tiers now feature a reduced points requirement to unlock each new status level, allowing guests to enjoy exclusive rewards faster.

For example, Silver status is now available to guests with 20 Rewards Points, compared to 30 previously, allowing guests who book a 10-day voyage in a suite to automatically reach Silver status after a single cruise.

Latitudes members will have access to a range of new onboard experiences and special offers tiered according to their status, including a one-time free cabin upgrade, Wines Around the World tasting experience, Sail & Sustain Mixology experience, member cruises, internet package discounts and the signature tier-status pins.

Other benefits Latitudes members will continue to enjoy as they move up the ranks include members-only cocktail parties, complimentary speciality dining and laundry service plus priority tender and disembarkation, as well as enjoy discounted shore excursions, duty-free shopping, photo packages and spa treatments.

Guests earn one Rewards Point for every night they sail, with an additional point per night for suite and The Haven by Norwegian guests, as well as for members who book a Latitudes Rewards Insider Offer. Guests are automatically enrolled in the program once they return home from their first cruise.

Emirates A380s flies Real Madrid to cup tie

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TTR WEEKLY

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January 13, 2022

DUBAI, 13 January 2022: The Emirates A380 emblazoned with the blue Expo 2020 “mobility” livery has landed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, carrying one of the most popular clubs in global football; Real Madrid, all the way from Madrid, Spain, to defend their title at the Spanish Super Cup semi-finals.

Onboard this special charter flight, guests and players from the Spanish club experienced the airline’s signature inflight services to rest and unwind in complete comfort ahead of their much-anticipated match. This included exquisite onboard gourmet meals and full flatbeds with premium bedding in First and Business Class, over 4,500 channels of the latest movies, TV shows and music on Emirates’ ice inflight entertainment system, and Emirates’ famous shower spa at 40,000 ft. above ground.

Emirates is the world’s largest operator of the iconic double-decker A380 aircraft, which attracts excitement from aviation enthusiasts and plane spotters wherever it flies. Customers also love the Emirates A380 experience for its spacious cabins and award-winning inflight products in all classes.

Since 2011, Emirates has been Real Madrid’s official main sponsor, bringing together two of the world’s most globally recognised brands in aviation and football. With a global fan base of 500 million, the Spanish Club has established itself as a major force in sports and has consistently played in the top division since its inception. As the world’s largest international airline, Emirates continues to connect Real Madrid with fans and spectators worldwide.

For more information visit: https://www.emirates.com/th/thai/

(Your Stories: Emirates)

Sabre SafePoint eases travel worries

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TTR WEEKLY

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January 13, 2022

SINGAPORE, 13 January 2022: Sabre Corporation, a software and technology provider that powers the global travel industry, announces the expansion of its travel risk management product, SafePoint, to include global travel restriction tracking.

While the solution is not limited to a singular event, it provides information regarding the spread of Covid-19 and new variants as well as destination entry restrictions imposed by countries, including masks, vaccinations, health documentation and quarantine requirements.

SafePoint monitors world events in near real-time, 24/7. It utilizes hundreds of data sources for events and restrictions that may impact travel arrangements and traveller safety. It helps Sabre’s travel agencies and corporate customers make more informed decisions and enhance the safety of their travellers by alerting them to restrictions that may impact their itinerary. Travellers will then be able to use the information to take action at any stage of their trip.

“As travel rebounds, we believe a duty-of-care and crisis alerting solution is imperative to any travel business, especially in a world where travel advisories can change rapidly. SafePoint is designed to keep travellers and corporate travel managers apprised of critical events in a fast-moving world,” said Sabre senior director of product management Saunvit Pandya.

ForwardKeys releases Travel Outlook 2022

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TTR WEEKLY

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January 13, 2022

VALENCIA, 13 January 2022: At the height of the pandemic in 2020, many wondered if things could get worse for the tourism sector, praying for travellers to return to the skies as soon as possible.

In 2021, there was a brief sensation of travel recovery as Americans took to the skies and flew South, just as many Northern Europeans did over the summer months, with Greece, Spain and Turkey showing the most resilience to turbulence. Sadly, the end of the year witnessed the steady increase of new cases, a new variant and new travel bans put into place.

In the latest analysis, ForwardKeys, demonstrate that there are signs to be optimistic about in 2022. Four key trends emerge that have the potential to make a huge difference this year.

Domestic Travel, a relevant player in the tourism sector

The first trend has got to do with the strength of domestic travel. We all know it was the first to rebound and that it helped to keep the travel industry afloat in many countries in 2021,” according to Forwardkeys vice president of insights OlivierPonti.

Look at what the data says, and to make things more tangible focus on a destination where recovery is well underway such as Spain. It’s a good example because a lot of domestic travel takes place by air due to large distances and the attractiveness of tourist hotspots like the Balearic or the Canary Islands.

Domestic travel since the beginning of the pandemic was quick to rebound, as early as the summer of 2020, just after confinement measures were lifted. In April of 2021, with the help of the Easter break, domestic travel reached back pre-covid levels for the first time. Since then, it’s remained strong, with various periods above 2019 levels, like during the autumn holidays at the end of October.

If we now look at the evolution of international departures from Spain, we realise that it took the Spaniards much longer to resume their trips abroad. It’s only from the spring of 2021 that we can see an acceleration of the recovery.

The important takeaway here is that international travel recovered while domestic travel remained strong, which means that the travel market is getting bigger. Spain is not an isolated case. We have seen the same pattern in many other countries, starting with the US, which plays a key role in global recovery. This is an excellent piece of news and a good reason for being optimistic.

Business travel is not dead

One of the great fears of the travel industry since the beginning of the pandemic has been that business travel would never come back. With online conferences, online meetings and reduced budgets from crisis-stricken companies, the odds looked bad for business travel. Yet, it appears that business travel is slowly but surely making a comeback.

“We could see this very clearly happening in Europe, where intra-European business travel was on a steady rise from April until the new wave of covid-cases last November,” says Ponti. He adds: “Yes, it is recovering more slowly than the leisure segment, and yes, recovery can be a bit bumpy, but all in all, the gap between leisure and business is narrowing, and business travel reached close to 70% of 2019 levels in October.”

The conclusion is that a large part of pre-covid business travel will eventually come back. In the new normal, there will still be sales representatives meeting their clients in person and people will still meet at conferences to exchange ideas.

The APAC region to reopen soon

So far, the one region in the world which has been lagging in terms of travel recovery is the Asia Pacific region. The main reason for this situation is simple: most destinations were not open for business and had travel restrictions in place that made travel cumbersome or next to impossible. The good news is that just before Omicron hit, this situation was changing at a fast pace. The group of countries partially open or who had announced a plan to reopen was much larger and included very popular destinations like India, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Fiji and Singapore.

There are good reasons to believe that these plans will be put back on track and that this will reactivate regional and even intercontinental travel, following the same pattern as what we’ve seen in other parts of the world, and hopefully go faster in the process. The one big question mark here is China, the world’s biggest outbound market pre-covid and a giant waiting for awakening.

Pent-Up demand is real

The last of the key recovery trends we wish to focus on is the continuous existence of pent-up demand. When people are not allowed to travel, it is difficult to assess how eager they are to book a trip. One way to get an idea of the scale of the pent-up demand is to look at what happens when travel restrictions are lifted in other parts of the world.

Australia has applied very strict travel restrictions until its reopening in November. From the moment the Australian government announced a reopening date, we could see a rapid acceleration of bookings from key source markets like the UK, Singapore, or the US. This shows that pent-up demand was there all along and only waited for a clear signal from the authorities to be released. In the case of Australia, this signal took a long time to come, but in other destinations, it came much faster and this, too, provided us with some precious insights about pent-up demand.

Take Greece, for example. Last March, the Greek government announced a reopening of the country to travellers with a Covid certificate. At the very same time, the number of covid cases in Greece was rising at an alarming rate. Given that this rebound of the pandemic was all over the news in Greece’s key source markets, it is fair to assume that people knew about this situation, and yet, the number of international tickets to the country grew at a very fast pace, which made Greece one of the success stories of last summer.

What this teaches us is that even when the Covid situation is getting worse, people still want to travel. What stops them is how governments react to the evolution of the pandemic. If they make sure that their country is open for business, the strength of travel demand is such that they will see travellers flying their way.

About ForwardKeys

ForwardKeys collates data from a variety of international sources, processing and enhancing it to offer insight into the profile, behaviour and impact of past, present and future travellers. Users of the ForwardKeys platform include companies that regard the traveller as a tourist: destination marketing organisations, tourist authorities and attractions and entertainment companies.

Check the latest analysis at www.forwardkeys.com

(Source: ForwardKeys)

Signs of recovery until Omicron arrived

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TTR WEEKLY

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January 12, 2022

KUALA LUMPUR, 12 January 2022: Preliminary November 2021 traffic figures released Tuesday by the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) showed notable improvement in international air passenger demand as some regional governments began to relax the strict border restrictions imposed since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, the emergence of the highly infectious Omicron variant in late November has since raised uncertainty over recovery prospects.

Overall volumes remain significantly depressed as the 1.6 million international passengers carried by the region’s airlines in November was just 5.2% of the corresponding pre-pandemic month in 2019. Measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), international passenger demand averaged 7.1% of 2019 levels, indicating the relative strength of longer-haul markets. Available seat capacity was 16.6% of the same month in 2019, with the international passenger load factor averaging 34.1% for the month.

With Covid-19 cases stabilising amidst rising vaccination rates across the region, improving manufacturing conditions and strong year-end export orders resulted in another month of robust growth in international air cargo markets.

For the region’s airlines, international air cargo demand, in freight tonne-kilometre (FTK) terms, grew by 16.5% year-on-year in November, staying above volumes recorded in the pre-pandemic months of 2019. The international freight load factor remained elevated, averaging 73.2% for the month after accounting for an 11.8% year-on-year expansion in offered freight capacity.

Commenting on the results, AAPA director-general Subhas Menon said: “For the first 11 months of the year, international passenger volumes were 4% of the same period in 2019. Although overall traffic volumes remain significantly depressed compared to pre-pandemic levels, the recent relaxation of some border restrictions and establishment of vaccinated travel lanes are welcome moves towards the restoration of international air travel in the region.”

“Meanwhile, the resilience of the cargo sector continues to be an important lifeline for the region’s airlines during this pandemic. On the other hand, oil prices have risen significantly, with jet fuel prices averaging US$92 per barrel in November, almost double of the corresponding month in 2020, adding to the challenges airlines face in a bid to restore profitability.”

Menon concluded, “Overall, full restoration of international air travel remains some way off. The abrupt re-imposition of travel restrictions by many governments in the face of the rising spread of the Omicron variant threatens to hold back the long-awaited revival of Asia’s travel and tourism industry. Collaboration and coordination of industry stakeholders across borders are critical to the safe and sustained resumption of international air travel, without which, the recovery journey will likely be volatile and uneven.”

Sydney hotel data peaks

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TTR WEEKLY

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January 12, 2022

LONDON, 12 January 2022: Based on performance data for the summer holiday season in Australia, Sydney’s hotels report their highest room rates of the pandemic era, according to preliminary December 2021 data from STR.

The latest data for Sydney hotels showed:
Occupancy: 45.0%;
Average daily rate (ADR): AUD236.64;
Revenue per available room (RevPAR): AUD106.38.

The market’s absolute ADR level was its highest for any month since December 2019, while occupancy and RevPAR were the highest since May and April 2021, respectively.

On 31 December, Sydney’s ADR (AUD533.81) was the highest in the market since 31 December 2019 (AUD651.85), while RevPAR (AUD287.57) was the highest since 1 January 2020 (AUD327.62). Additionally, daily occupancy for the month peaked at 65.3% on 11 December.

Looking ahead, STR’s latest Forward STAR data shows Sydney’s highest occupancy on the books on 15 January (32%), demonstrating the continued uncertainty and subsequent hesitation of guests to book too far in advance.

(Source: STR)

Are Asian destinations losing their shine for retirees?

By

Don Ross

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January 12, 2022

CHIANG RAI, 12 January 2022: Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam all lost ground in the International Living’s Global Retirement Index 2022, dropping out of the top 10 country list for the first time in three years.

Malaysia that figured 5^th in the top 10 ranking in 2019, slumped to 15^th in the latest index that measures the value of destinations for the magazine’s mainly US retiree audience. Vietnam fell from the 10^th spot achieved in 2020 and 2021 to 18^th in the 2022 index.

Thailand dropped a couple of places from 9^th in 2019 to 11^th, making it the highest placed destination in Asia out of Living International’s pick of the top 25 destinations worldwide.

Only six Asian destinations figured in the 2022 rating – Thailand 11^th, Cambodia 14^th, Malaysia 15^th, Bali Indonesia, 16^th, Sri Lanka 17th and Vietnam 18^th.

According to Living International’s blurb, the rankings are based on various factors, including the cost of living, food, medical cost, visa convenience, weather, things to do, security, tradition, and culture.

But the factors that gain the attention of most retirees are cost-of-living, medical, housing and immigration rules.

Topped placed Asian destination, Thailand gathered an overall score of 74.6 compared with Vietnam lowest-placed Asian destination at 68.9.

Living International’s assessment suggests foreigners can live in Thailand for as little as USD1,000 or around THB33,000 per month, a cost of living budget most retirees in Thailand would call mission impossible.

Now rolling into its third year, the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the high cost of health insurance in Thailand for most retirees and excessive medical costs charged by international hospitals.

Due to Living International’s focus on North American retirees, destinations in the Americas and Europe dominate the annual list. Still, in recent years, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam earned places on the top 10 chart.

Top 10 places to retire

Panama topped the Annual Global Retirement Index for 2022 as the world’s safest, most affordable and most welcoming country – with an average score of 86.1.

Costa Rica was in second place, while Mexico was third, followed by Portugal, Ecuador, Colombia, France, Malta, Spain and Uruguay.

Passport power reveals travel disparities

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TTR WEEKLY

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January 12, 2022

LONDON, 12 January 2022: As 2022 gets underway, the latest results from the Henley Passport Index show record-breaking levels of travel freedom for top-ranking nations Japan and Singapore, but also the widest recorded global mobility gap since the index’s inception 17 years ago.

Without taking evolving and temporary Covid-related restrictions into account, passport holders of the two Asian nations can now enter 192 destinations around the world visa-free – 166 more than Afghanistan, which sits at the bottom of the index.

This deepening divide in international mobility between wealthier countries and poorer ones was brought into sharp focus late last year with the arrival of the highly infectious Omicron variant, which was met with a raft of punitive restrictions against mainly African nations.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described them as akin to “travel apartheid”.

The Henley Passport Index, which ranks all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa and is based on official data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) shows an individual could, on average, visit 57 countries in 2006 without needing to acquire a visa in advance.

Today, that number has risen to 107, but this overall increase masks a growing disparity between countries in the global north and those in the global south, with nationals from countries such as Sweden and the US able to visit more than 180 destinations visa-free, while passport holders from Angola, Cameroon, and Laos are able to enter only about 50.

Covid-19 exacerbates inequality in global mobility

Germany and South Korea hold on to the joint second spot on the latest ranking, with passport holders able to access 190 destinations visa-free, while Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, and Spain share 3rd place, with a score of 189. The US and the UK passports have regained some of their previous strength after falling all the way to 8th place in 2020 – the lowest spot held by either country in the index’s 17-year history. Both countries now sit in 6th place, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 186.

Henley & Partners chairman and the creator of the passport index concept, Dr Christian Kaelin says opening up migration channels is essential for post-pandemic recovery.

“Passports and visas are among the most important instruments impacting on social inequality worldwide as they determine opportunities for global mobility. The borders within which we happen to be born, and the documents we are entitled to hold, are no less arbitrary than our skin colour. Wealthier states need to encourage positive inward migration in an effort to help redistribute and rebalance human and material resources worldwide, including improving the size and quality of their own workforces.”

Commenting in the Henley Global Mobility Report 2022 Q1, which was released Tuesday along with the latest Henley Passport Index ranking, Migration Policy Centre’s Professor Mehari Taddele Mari points out the global south’s willingness to respond to changing circumstances is not always shared by countries in the global north.

“Expensive requirements associated with international travel institutionalize inequality and discrimination. Covid-19 and its interplay with instability and inequality have highlighted and exacerbated the shocking disparity in international mobility between wealthy developed nations and their poorer counterparts.”

Using 17 years’ worth of data from the Henley Passport Index, political scientists Ugur Altundal and Dr Omer Zarpli compared visa-free scores with World Bank statistics on GDP and fragility, as well as with data collected by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project at the University of Gothenburg.

The study shows that while citizens of upper-middle- and high-income countries have achieved visa-free access to most nations, citizens of lower-middle- and low-income countries, as well as ones with higher fragility scores, enjoy far less travel freedom because they are deemed to be high-risk when it comes to security, asylum, and overstay.

(Source: Henley Passport Index)

Will 2022 be the Year of Travel Rebound?

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TTR WEEKLY

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January 12, 2022

SINGAPORE, 12 January 2022: A new travel trends research paper released Tuesday by Tripadvisor, in partnership with Ipsos MORI, reveals how consumers plan to travel in 2022 and how their attitudes and behaviour have changed.

While outside factors like Covid-19 variants, international travel rules and staffing shortages still can represent existential threats to traveller behaviours, year-end sentiment and search data shows ongoing demand for travel remains high. Who benefits from the tourism demand? As travellers spend more, cultural experience providers (tours and attractions), tourism businesses catering to domestic audiences and companies adhering to safety standards will win the hearts and minds of travellers.

‘Travel in 2022 – A Look Ahead’ combines consumer sentiment analysis, gathered by Ipsos MORI on behalf of Tripadvisor, via surveys in five major international markets, and behavioural analysis of Tripadvisor’s first-party search data — uncovering several travel patterns, such as the average length of a trip planned for 2022 and the amount travellers are looking to spend, according to searches they actively made on the Tripadvisor platform before year-end.

“Despite new variants of COVID-19, consumers across the globe still want to travel and explore. This is evident in our month-over-month search data, which shows a consistent, healthy increase in page views post-holidays,” said Tripadvisor Inc chief commercial officer, Kanika Soni, “Travellers are quickly adapting to local public health conditions, with cleanliness and safety remaining important factors in their planning.”

The report shows that the pandemic weighs on the minds of people across the countries featured in this study. The good news is that reported travel intent for 2022 compared with 2019 and analysis of planned average trip spend show prospects for a strong year ahead in the hospitality industry.

Key findings from the study

● Planned travel in 2022 surpasses actual travel in 2019

○ Across the five key markets around the world that were surveyed, those likely to travel for leisure purposes in 2022 outpaces pre-pandemic reported travel levels.

○ In the UK, 78% of respondents said that they are likely to travel for leisure in 2022, compared to 72% of those who said that they travelled for leisure in 2019.

○ In the US, 2022 leisure travel intent has risen eight percentage points compared to 2019, with 71% saying they are likely to travel for leisure in 2022.

○ Singapore leads the way in travel optimism, with 82% reporting they are likely to vacation in 2022, up 2% compared to 2019. Australia (72%) and Japan (51%) are trending similarly, with those who are planning a leisure trip in 2022 up 7% and 5% from those who reported travelling in 2019, respectively.

● Average spend per trip for 2022 is beyond that of 2019, as travellers look to level up their travel experience**

○ According to Tripadvisor site behavioural data, American travellers are expected to spend 29% more on their average trip in 2022 than they did in 2019.

○ In Australia, average booking rates are expected to be up by 16% in 2022 against 2019.

○ Singaporean travellers booking values are also expected to increase by an average of 7%.

○ On the other end of the spectrum, the average Japanese traveller expects to spend 30% less in 2022 than in 2019. In Italy, the average booking spend is expected to decrease 19%. While in the UK, Brits are planning to spend slightly less on 2022 travel than they did in 2019 (-1%).

○ Shifting from behaviour to sentiment, over a quarter of travellers in each of the five markets surveyed said it is more important now than before the pandemic to splurge on a big trip. In the United States, roughly 3 in 10 Americans (29%) who travelled for leisure in 2019 said it’s more important now than before the pandemic to splurge on a big trip.

● Domestic travel continues to lead the way

○ While a sizable proportion of consumers across most of the markets surveyed plan to travel abroad for leisure in 2022, travelling within their home country is still the most favoured option.

○ Seventy-four per cent of Singaporean respondents plan to travel domestically for leisure, compared with 53% who plan to travel abroad. Seventy-three per cent of UK residents say they plan to travel within the UK for leisure compared with 48% planning to travel abroad.

○ In the US and Australia, 68% of respondents in each market said they are likely to travel domestically in 2022, while 29% of Americans said they are likely to travel overseas in 2022 compared to 38% of Australians.

○ In Japan, 50% of Japanese respondents reported that they are likely to travel within their home country in 2022, compared to 10% of those likely to travel internationally.

● Travellers are seeking new travel experiences in 2022 and beyond

○ More than a third to nearly half of all travellers surveyed in the United States (41%), UK (38%), Australia (46%), Japan (34%) and Singapore (49%) said that travelling to a destination they’ve never been to before would be more important to them now, compared to trips they took in 2019 when choosing where to travel.

○ Three-quarters (75%) of Americans said that it’s important they “see new places” when thinking about their future travel plans, 74% of Australians, 73% of Singaporeans, 70% of Britons and over half (59%) in Japan said the same.

○ The top three most important considerations across the markets surveyed are getting immersive by seeing new places, having new experiences and learning about history and culture.

○ Forty-four per cent of Singaporean travellers, 38% of Australians and a third (34%) of Americans and UK travellers respectively said that it’s more important now than before the pandemic that they choose a destination where they can immerse themselves in “authentic local experiences”. A quarter (25%) of Japanese travellers said the same.

○ In both the US and Australia, 30% of travellers said it’s more important now that they “pack as many activities” into their holiday travel as possible. While in the UK, 28% said it’s more critical for them to plan an action-packed travel experience in 2022 or beyond.

○ About two in 10 travellers in each of the five markets surveyed said they will do more guided cultural activities – those activities and tours where subject matter experts and professional guides allow for travellers to sit back, learn, relax, and see all that an area has to offer – when planning trips in 2022 or beyond than before the pandemic (except in Japan where this proportion was 14%).

● Covid-19 case counts, safety protocols, quarantine restrictions, and cleanliness are all key factors in travel decision making in 2022

○ Eighty-five per cent of Singaporean travellers, nearly three-quarters of Japanese (73%) and Australian (74%) travellers, 72% of British, and 70% of Americans say that cleanliness measures of a hospitality business will be an important factor in their travel decision making next year, even after Covid-19 cases have dropped worldwide.

○ Approximately 7 in 10 respondents in each of the markets said that destinations that have a low number of COVID-19 cases are important when making a decision on where to travel next.

○ One-third of the Brits (32%) and Americans (33%) who aren’t travelling next year said they’ve decided against it because of uncertainty surrounding possible travel restrictions. Over half (55%) of Singaporeans, 47% of Australians and a quarter (25%) of Japanese respondents cited the same reason.

(Source: Tripadvisor)

The 2022 travel trends report can be viewed in full at this link: https://www.tripadvisor.com/TravelTrendsReportJan2022

Thomas Cook expands outlets in Delhi

Norwegian tweaks its loyalty perks

Emirates A380s flies Real Madrid to cup tie

Sabre SafePoint eases travel worries

ForwardKeys releases Travel Outlook 2022

Signs of recovery until Omicron arrived

Sydney hotel data peaks

Are Asian destinations losing their shine for retirees?

Passport power reveals travel disparities

Will 2022 be the Year of Travel Rebound?

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