According to the latest available air ticketing data (combining arrivals up to 18th October with bookings to the end of the year), the Dominican Republic is set to welcome 5% more visitors than it did in 2019.
ForwardKeys, which has the world’s largest and freshest database of flight tickets, has revealed the performance of top global destinations of 2022 in an extensive review of the year. (An expanded list with additional regional and industry-wide insights can be downloaded in a detailed report from the ForwardKeys website.
The Dominican Republic heads the country list, and the city list is by Antalya in Turkey. Jamaica and Pakistan follow them, 5% down, then Bangladesh, 8% down; Greece, 12% down; Egypt, 15% down; Portugal, 16% down; and the UAE, 17% down. It is followed by Turkey, Costa Rica and Mexico, which will welcome the same number of visitors. The twenty best performers are shown in the table below.
The strongest is recovery, as pandemic-related travel restrictions have been progressively relaxed and pent-up demand to travel been released, helped by a recent revival in business travel and major global events such as the World Expo in Dubai and the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. There has also been a trend towards travel in premium cabins, partly fuelled by so-called “revenge travel”, which has seen consumers spending more on value-added travel services. Although Russia’s invasion of Ukraine massively impacted travel to and from Russia, as numerous countries imposed bans on direct flights, it has not caused long-haul travel to Europe to decline as much as one might have expected before the pandemic.
The strong representation of Central American and Caribbean destinations towards the top of the list reflects the relative strength of the US outbound market and the approach taken by many highly tourism-dependent countries in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, which, throughout the pandemic, imposed less severe COVID-19 travel restrictions than elsewhere, and in doing so maintained their visitor economies.
Consumer demand for beach holidays has led the revival, with business travel and city tourism lagging until the start of the autumn.
The Asia Pacific region, which has been characterised by stiffer travel restrictions, most notably in China with its Zero Covid policy, has finally started to recover. Initially, the highly virulent Omicron variant caused great concern and the reimposition of travel restrictions at the start of the year. However, ForwardKeys expects that second-order consequences of the war, such as rising fuel prices and inflation, will delay travel recovery.
Travel to Southern Europe, especially to Greece, down 12%; Portugal, down 16%; and Turkey, flat, and Iceland, down 14%, are set to hold up well. The extraordinary performance of Antalya has been helped by a few factors, most notably the Turkish lira’s weakness and the Turkish government’s policy to remain relatively open to tourism during the pandemic and to continue welcoming Russian visitors. Leisure travel to the Maldives, down 7%, and Fiji, down 22%, both tropical island paradises, are set to hold up well. Alongside the ranking, ForwardKeys identified several significant trends that have characterised travel in 2022.
Among top destination cities, the best performer is Antalya, the largest city on the Turkish riviera, which is set to welcome 66% more visitors than it did in the equivalent period in 2019. Another factor stalling recovery was staff shortages, which resulted in chaotic scenes in airports before the start of the summer season. As the year has progressed, they have consolidated their leadership position and begun to exceed pre-pandemic volumes. It is followed by San Jose Cabo (MX), up 21%; Puerto Vallarta (MX), up 13%, Punta Cana (DO), up 12%, San Salvador (SV), up 10%, Cancun (MX), up 9%, Lahore (PK), up 4%, Aruba (AW), up 3%, Montego Bay (JM), flat, and Islamabad (PK), down 1%. There, people travelling to visit friends and relatives have been the driver, with Pakistan and Bangladesh just 5% and 8% down on 2019 levels. That syndrome, plus the increasing fuel cost, has driven a substantial increase in fares.
However, the recovery has not been smooth.
Olivier Ponti, VP of Insights, ForwardKeys, said: “Looking at the world on a regional basis, one must admire Caribbean countries for their early efforts to sustain visitor arrivals in the face of the pandemic and their continued growth in an increasingly competitive travel landscape.
The Middle East also stands out, as it has helped to accelerate its recovery by hosting major global events such as the Dubai World Expo, Formula One grand Prix in various Gulf locations and, above all, the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The Gulf has also seen a relatively robust comeback in business travel, a segment whose recent revival has come as a surprise to many.”
ForwardKeys’ full report, including an expanded version of the best-visited destination rankings and much more detail on travel trends, is available gratis at: https://forwardkeys.com/the-
Written by: Supaporn Pholrach (Joom)
