Total scheduled airline seats this week remains above the 90 million mark, a few regions have reported slight reductions in capacity leading to a total seat reduction this week of 190,000. Indications are that we should stay at this sort of level for the next few weeks by which time, with a bit of luck, China will once again be easing the latest lockdown. As always there are a few nuggets of change in the week’s data, and we are also going to look at the top twenty international airports this week compared to this time in 2019 with some notable absences, although not quite as many as in the Everton defence this weekend!
The latest air ticketing data from ForwardKeys reveals that Russian outbound tourism, already severely handicapped by pandemic travel restrictions, has fallen even further, because of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine. But affluent travellers are still flying, just not to Europe. In the week before the outbreak of war (w/c 18th Feb), outbound international air tickets from Russia stood at 42% of pre-pandemic levels; but in the week immediately after the invasion (w/c 25th Feb), issued air tickets fell to just 19%. Since then, flight bookings have sunk deeper still and have been hovering at around 15%.
All scales reported ADR growth over March 2019, ranging from +2.8% (upscale) to +26.8% (luxury) despite occupancy declines across the board. Upscale (+1.6%), upper midscale (+4.1%) and midscale (+1.0) properties posted demand growth, but each are competing with an influx of supply (+10.5%, +8.4% and +3.6%, respectively) which offsets any potential occupancy gains. Upper upscale showed the worst RevPAR decline (-8.4%), driven down by a 12.1% demand decline coupled with 4.6% growth in supply.
As we are into the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic, here are the latest developments in travel industry as of 4/18/2022. Starting off with the US airports, following a strong first quarter of 2022, despite the Omicron wave that led to thousands of flight cancelations, foot traffic picked up steam in March and is on track to hit its highest level in the next days since the beginning of 2022. Airport visits across the country are 22.5% down compared to April 2019 so far but our data indicates that the total number of visits at the end of this month will likely surpass March’s mark of approximately 112mm.
Observing, as we do at OAG, the changes in global airline capacity week by week to understand trends and patterns in air service provision, one of the most striking features over the past year has been the speed at which Chinese airlines can both remove and add capacity over a short space of time. The extent to which they do this, and the sheer size of the Chinese aviation market, has meant that what happens in China makes a difference at a global level when we look at overall air travel trends.
As there is much talk about travel recovery around the world, first with the Americas leading in 2021 and again in 2022, the travel data experts at ForwardKeys are noticing the first taste of recovery in Africa and the Middle East. International arrivals to Africa and the Middle East in Q2 of 2022 are at -33% compared to 2019 levels, above the total international outbound average of -45% and just behind the leading recovery region, the Americas (-27%). Last year this figure was at -64%, so this is a marked improvement.
Like it or not, China keeps making the headlines since the advent of the pandemic in 2020, and it’s for all sorts of reasons. From Covid containment and the strict zero policy to the closure of outbound tourism to the unstoppable desire to shop and travel – even if it’s just to neighbouring Macau or Hainan. The latest news is the lockdown of one of China’s most important financial centres: Shanghai. And now local authorities are telling Beijing residents to stay put ahead of the famous May holiday. But is it really all doom and gloom for the travel economy?
More than two-thirds of STR-defined U.S. hotel markets (113 of 165) outperformed their 2019 comparables over the four weeks ending 9 April 2022, which is reflective of the industry’s rebound toward normalcy as well as some influence from inflation. Only seven markets in total over the 28-day period reported revenue-per-available-room (RevPAR) indices below 80 (20% below 2019 levels). Late March into early April 2022 also marked a key turnaround in the number of major markets making appreciable performance gains toward historical performance levels.
The travel industry has seen its fair share of challenges over the past two years. As the wider situation begins to stabilize, will we see travel trends bounce back to pre-COVID levels? We took a closer look at Q1 2022 foot traffic data for hotels, airports, and major convention centers to find out. Travel agents are predicting that domestic tourism may return to pre-pandemic levels in 2022, as people finally get to take those trips they’d been putting off. We took a look at data to see if those predictions are reflected in the foot traffic.
Global tourism receipts were well below the pre-pandemic level in 2021 as travel restrictions and uncertainty persisted, and changing consumer behavior dented economic recovery. But now, in the spring of 2022, some two years since COVID-19 forced governments to impose lockdowns and severe travel restrictions, there are plenty of signs of optimism for the future of tourism. This is true even with potential macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds.
As a Global Data Partner of the World Travel Market (WTM), the Head of Market Intelligence, Juan Gomez, has been invited to present at WTM LATAM this week in Sao Paulo on April 6 on the Travel Tech stage. Here are a few points the Head of Market Intelligence shall share in his presentation on the LATAM Travel Outlook for 2022 – to catch the whole presentation and live panel discussion with ProColombia and Emprotur Brazil, make sure you register to attend.
Spain is among the most sought-after destinations in the world by tourists for this Easter, as highlighted in the presentation of travel forecasts to Spain made last Friday, 1 April 2022 by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism and ForwardKeys, the leading global travel intelligence and data company. “The year 2022 has started with a sustained recovery in tourism, as shown by the data from the hotel occupancy survey with 24.1 million overnight stays between January and February, 72% of the pre-pandemic level, or the employment data recorded in February.
Tracking airline capacity has, for a long time, been the best measure of what has happened through the Covid-19 pandemic, but nothing beats looking at the forward booking data. In this piece of analysis, we have compared both forward bookings and airline capacity as reported in the first days of March in 2021 and 2022 to gauge how strong the travel recovery is shaping up. The results are startling!
Hotel performance has remained stable in most of Europe amid the war in Ukraine, and countries bordering the conflict area have seen a refugee-driven lift in occupancy. Using standard methodology, which excludes temporary closures from the pandemic, Europe’s hotel occupancy hasn’t dipped below 53% on a running 7-day basis since late February. The latest data for 20 March showed occupancy above 58%. When indexed to 2019, levels over the last few weeks have not fallen below 77% of the pre-pandemic comparables and came in above 80% on 20 March.
The first week of the season is like a typical April day, a bit of sunshine, some cloud and some ugly showers! On the positive side of the equation global airline capacity has increased back to 83.4 million, an increase of 2.6 million or 3% week-on-week. This growth had the potential to be even higher, but airline capacity in China fell by 10% (just over a million more seats) as further lockdowns impacted available airline capacity. The cloudy side of this week’s flight data is buried in the forward-looking airline capacity for the next three months in which 28 million seats have been removed through to June with over 12 million in April alone.
The U.S. hotel industry posted its highest weekly occupancy since the end of summer 2021 with a level of 66.9% during the week of 13-19 March 2022. Boosted by Spring Break and NCAA March Madness, one-fifth of the 166 STR-defined U.S. markets reported their highest occupancy of the past 32 weeks with 12 markets achieving pandemic-era highs. For a second consecutive week, average daily rate (ADR) increased by more than 4%, pushing the weekly level 14% higher than the 2019 comparable.
Leisure travel continues to be particularly strong in the U.S. as spring kicks into gear, and the biggest hotel performance wins recently have come in those U.S. markets that are traditional Spring Break destinations. At the same time, major urban centers are seeing some return of transient business demand along with increases in group bookings. Since last month’s update, travelers have continued to seek relief and respite in warmer or winter-fun locales, as shown by hotel performance data for the four weeks ending 12 March 2022.
Two years ago, global airline capacity fell off a cliff; 21 million seats were cut in the space of seven days representing a 24% reduction, the Covid-19 pandemic was gathering pace and markets around the world were closing rapidly. Today, global capacity has settled at 82 million seats a week, an aviation recovery of sorts but still 22% below the same week in 2020 - although for the optimistic amongst you that is a 39% increase on this time last year. It seems that things are heading in the right direction, but as we expected the journey to recovery will not be without some bumps along the way and perhaps from events that we had not anticipated.
U.S. hotel weekly occupancy slipped a bit in the most recent week of reporting (27 February-5 March 2022), falling to 61.2% from 62.2% the week prior. While all attention is focused on rising gas prices and the potential impact on hotel demand, this week’s decrease was due to a weaker Sunday as the previous Sunday benefited from the Presidents’ Day holiday. Excluding Sunday, occupancy for the remaining six days reached 63.2%, the highest six-day result in the country since mid-November.
In its second public analysis since the outbreak of war, ForwardKeys compared flight bookings in the week following the invasion, 24th Feb – 2nd Mar, to the previous seven days. Excluding Ukraine and Moldova, which closed their air space, and Russia and Belarus, which were subjected to flight bans and safety warnings, the destinations worst affected were generally those closest to the conflict. Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia all saw a 30% – 50% collapse in bookings.
