Migration and population trends for September 2021 are in. We are starting to see a slow return back to base, meaning residents returning to urban locations. But it is a slow process and by no means complete yet. Here are a few representative graphs that illustrate the point. Resident moves from May to September 2021 show a slight increase of residents in the Northeast (New York to Massachusetts), Southeast, Northwest and (less so) in the Southwest coasts.
Recovery is on the minds of most everyone in the industry at this point in the pandemic. In a previous article published at the beginning of the year, STR analyzed South America and how the region’s hotel performance has been closely tied to its pandemic timeline. With the pandemic situation in mind as we enter the last quarter of the year, is it now time to talk about real recovery in South America? Let’s start with some global perspective.
Summer 2020 undoubtedly looked much different around Europe due to the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fast forward to this year, and there was hope that the region’s effort toward a more “normal” summer would be successful. On 1 July 2021, the EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation entered into application, allowing fully vaccinated tourists to avoid tests or quarantines and broaden the list of European regions in which they could travel.
U.S. demand and occupancy continued to surprise and delight as both measures rose again during 19-25 September 2021, which was the second consecutive week of such gains. Most industry observers expected a moderate to sharp performance decrease in the weeks after Labor Day given the seasonal return to in-person schooling as well as the increase in COVID hospitalizations and a low volume of business travel. Occupancy for the week advanced to 63.2%, up 0.3 points week on week and 89% of the comparable level from 2019. During the summer, from the week of Memorial Day to the week of Labor Day, occupancy averaged 66.1% and 91% of 2019’s levels.
For ten of the past thirteen weeks, scheduled airline capacity from Russian airports has exceeded capacity in the same weeks in 2019. While there has been plenty of focus on the recovery of the domestic Chinese market and domestic US market, much less has been said about Russia but the country has witnessed a remarkable increase in flying this past summer. While international capacity from Russia has been steadily growing all year it still remains at 39% below 2019 levels, but domestic capacity has been positive since March, and seen a major surge between April and June.
During the peak summer months, Spain was one of the destinations in the world to see its domestic tourism sector get close to pre-pandemic levels with the most resilient destinations for both local and international tourists being the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands. Tickets confirmed in September for any future travel versus the same period in 2019 show the Canary Islands as the most desired destination for locals and internationals yet again.
STR’s monthly 51-chart map focusing on revenue per available room (RevPAR) on a total-room-inventory basis shows a variety of recent national/regional market trends as well as the general pace of the industry’s continued recovery from the pandemic. With Labor Day marking the unofficial end of the summer leisure-oriented travel season, recent weeks have produced a dip from summer peaks in many markets with ground lost from 2019 RevPAR levels. This expected seasonal slowing in U.S. hotel business is evidenced in most states’ performance.
Global airline capacity has increased week-on-week but remains stubbornly below the 80 million mark with an additional 180,000 seats taking the global total to 79 million (with a little bit of rounding up). A 0.2% increase in seats is at least a positive development compared to recent weeks, but capacity remains 30% below the 2019 level with little hope of an improvement in the coming weeks. The reopening of the United States, at a date sometime in November, may have resulted in a surge of airline bookings but it certainly hasn’t resulted in airlines adding capacity
US President Biden announced this week that the country will lift restrictions for vaccinated international travelers looking to come to the US. But if you lift restrictions, will travelers come? In today’s Insight Flash, we compare travel trends in the US and UK to see how spend from overseas might shift with more travel options open. Consumer Edge Data has been very prescient in the US, and caught July’s deceleration in spend well ahead of the companies lowering revenue guidance:
In an unexpected turn, U.S. demand and occupancy advanced in the latest week of reporting (12-18 September 2021) to the best levels of the past four weeks. Weekly demand increased 1.2 million rooms to 24.3 million, which was the largest weekly gain of the past nine weeks, pushing occupancy to 63.0%. Subdued demand was expected this week due to the mid-week observance of Yom Kippur. Daily occupancy advanced every day of the week, except Sunday, growing week on week and day on day, culminating in a level of 78% on Saturday.
As the team of data scientists and analysts at ForwardKeys keep a vigilant eye on travel recovery around the world, an unexpected twist keeps on appearing: the creation of quarantine travel hubs. We don’t wish to call it a trend, rather, it’s more of an example of the lengths people are willing to take to get to certain long-haul destinations – even with tricky travel restrictions in place. And it has continued to play a role in travel and tourism since the onslaught of the pandemic.
Finally, good news for every scheduled airline CEO in Europe and the United States; the US will allow double vaccinated travellers to enter from a date in early November. Quite why regulators can’t state the precise date always seems to be odd, but it appears to have been a catching trend through the pandemic. This announcement is great news and perhaps, fingers crossed, an indication that a recovery is underway in the industry - just China, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Africa to go! So, just how much of a Christmas gift will the reopening of services be to those airlines operating?
Unlike the bumpy Singapore and Hong Kong Air Travel Bubble (ATB) that was scrapped after two postponements, the newly launched Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) between Singapore and Germany has been distinctively smooth. For travel-starved residents in Singapore who have been kept at home by the pandemic since March last year, the pilot scheme’s significance lies in Germany being the first quarantine-free, long-haul destination for the fully vaccinated.
Our latest whitepaper analyzes the tourism and travel recovery following a year and a half of extraordinary challenges. We dove into foot traffic data for cities, states, hotels, airports, and tourist attractions across the countries to understand how the pandemic impacted – and continues to impact – these critical industries. For this whitepaper, we supplemented our usual data streams with data from Placer.ai’s free COVID Recovery Dashboard, which measures retail and domestic tourism visits across every state, county, city, and zip code in the United States.
One of the main objectives of airline carriers is to optimize revenue, which they accomplish by deciding on what flights to operate, when and with what aircrafts depending on demand. Airline capacity is used by many tourism businesses as a proxy for the number of travellers that will be in a destination. It seems like a safe number to work with, as airline schedules are considered to be quite static. However, that time is long gone, the global trend of using big data for more exact planning and forecasts have been picked up by the airlines, which means that they do regularly change flights.
With summer ending and the much-needed leisure travel surge waning, much of the industry’s attention and focus shifts to business travel. For true recovery to occur, the travel and hospitality industry needs to see business travel return to pre-pandemic levels. Unfortunately, the prospects for such a return do not appear good at the moment. The Delta variant continues to disrupt the reopening of economies in many parts of the world and, indeed, some countries are grappling with previously unseen levels of infections.
ForwardKeys’ and Dragon Trail International’s recent findings reveal that the Chinese travel market is not only super resilient but desperate for revenge travel, even if it is only within China! Dragon Trail International’s fourth Chinese Traveller Sentiment Survey found that more Chinese are resuming pre-pandemic travel behaviours, despite the persistent concern for safety. 43% of survey respondents said they would “travel cautiously,” up from 31% in Dragon Trail’s March 2021 survey.
For those of us in Europe it may feel like summer has come and gone and we haven’t managed to get away on holiday. Restrictions eased too late for many, and the Delta variant meant there was too much uncertainty about who would be permitted to travel, making it easier and less stressful to stay home. In a ‘normal’ year the next major holiday getaway period would be December for the Christmas and New Year break. For those seeking some sunshine in the northern hemisphere’s winter, the Caribbean can be a great destination
The travel experts at ForwardKeys were recently invited to present at the Adria Forum in Zagreb to shed additional light on the development of tourism in the Balkan region by highlighting the important role flight connectivity has in international and domestic arrivals. And the results are interesting as it reveals the savvy business approach of Croatia over the summer as well as reinforcing the future value of Tirana and Podgorica as important airport hubs into the region.
When examining the latest Air Ticketing Data for industry partner CAPA, a clear observation is that travel recovery is performing at a different pace from country to country – even if you are in the same region! “Withstanding where you are in the world, you are a winning destination showing resilience if you are smartly promoting sun and sea leisure destinations; remained open throughout the pandemic or wisely made announcements in advance of key tourism periods; kept your travel restrictions consistent and easy to follow
