We are on July, there is good and not so good news. For example, the fact that tourism has been trying to recover from the hard blow of 2020 for months, but Covid-19 is still there, affecting the recovery of the tourism sector, now with new Covid strains or variants. They put many countries in Europe on alert, but thanks to the international policies taken, we hope that they will not ruin the 2021 summer holidays.
According to a recent analysis by one of the largest metasearch engines in the industry, travelers have shown increasing interest in traveling to Europe. Flight searches in recent weeks have confirmed the trend; however, the growth rate has slowed compared to the previous month.
This trend has been published by Lybra, which has provided us with the following data:
In the last 30 days (from May 27 to June 26), the search for flights has increased by 37% compared to the previous month, going from 89.5 million to 122.5 million. This thanks mainly to the policies opening countries, increasing the number of vaccinated people and reducing restrictions. Last month, data in Europe was particularly prominent, with a 62% increase in searches over the same period last year and a daily growth rate of 2.5%. Even so, in recent weeks the interest has decreased: today, the average daily growth rate is set at 1%.
What is the search flow?
The analysis indicates that during the last 30 days, travelers have searched an average of 4 million daily flights to European destinations, especially to Mediterranean countries.
What are the favorite destinations?
Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey are the favorite destinations, they are the countries for which there is a greater interest and represent, by themselves, more than half of the searches (54.2%).
This is how we see it in the following infographic:
TOP 3: Spain, Italy and Turkey that join the trend.
20% of tourists are still looking for flights to Spain, undoubtedly it continues to be the most popular place in Europe, although it is worth mentioning that it decreased a bit this month compared to the previous one, but not because reservations have fallen but because tourists are starting to wanting to visit other countries that are beginning to open their borders, such is the case of Turkey.
In Spain, the places that shows better numbers, as shown by the B2B TravelgateX platform are:
- Andalusia with 27% of the reserves.
- Balearic Islands with 15% of the reserves.
- Catalonia with 14% of the reserves.
- Valencia with 11% of the reservations.
- Canary Islands. with 12% of the reserves.
After Spain, Italy ranks second in flight searches, with 17.5 million searches, 48% more than the previous month, the places in Italy that hit the most in bookings are:
- Lazio with 17.57% of the reserves.
- Lombardy with 9.8% of the reserves but with an exponential weekly growth.
- Veneto with 11% of the reservations.
- Sicily with 14% of bookings, but with a slight decrease this week of 1.5% compared to last week.
Third is Turkey, with 11.3 million searches. In fact, according to the analysis carried out, Istanbul airport is the most sought after airport in European countries. They are followed by Palma de Mallorca (3.56 million), Barcelona (3.40 million), Athens (3.07 million) and London (2.98 million).
It is worth mentioning that Turkey has the highest growth rate of European destinations. During the last 30 days, searches have increased at an average daily rate of 1.3%, although the country has been growing steadily for three months.
The majority of flight searches for Turkey are for Istanbul Airport (33% of the total number of searches), with 3.56 million searches.
The analysis carried out and published also shows us the situation in the United Kingdom, indicating that during the past month 8.23 million searches were carried out in the last 30 days, only 9% more than the previous month. The average daily growth rate is around + 0.8%.
While rapid inoculations of the vaccine initially stimulated demand (especially outbound demand), the traffic light system set up by the British government has blocked it, discouraging travelers from visiting the country. To date, only a few countries are included in the green list; all others are subject to a minimum 10-day quarantine, which makes the idea of traveling to the UK more difficult for most travelers.
Furthermore, with the spread of the Delta variant, the UK is no longer among the safe countries on the EU list and some countries, such as Italy, are reintroducing mandatory quarantine for travelers arriving from the islands. This trend shows the uncertainty of demand, which is now mainly domestic (35%) and seeks last minute flights.
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