INTERNATIONAL. Travel intelligence specialist ForwardKeys has released its annual Most Visited Destinations report, which reveals the performance of top global travel destinations in 2022 to date.
The Americas & Caribbean took four of the five top spots, based on research that compared air ticketing data combining arrivals up to 18 October with bookings to the end of the year. These are compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
Leading the country list is the Dominican Republic, which is set to welcome +5% more visitors than in 2019. It is followed by Turkey, Costa Rica and Mexico with similar visitor numbers in each case to 2019.
Other strong performers in relative terms include Jamaica and Pakistan, each down -5%, followed by Bangladesh at -8%, Greece, -12%, Egypt -15%, Portugal -16% and the UAE -17%.
ForwardKeys said that the strong representation of Central American and Caribbean destinations reflects the strength of the US outbound market.
Growth was also linked to the approach taken by many tourism-dependent countries in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, which throughout the pandemic imposed less severe Covid-19 travel restrictions than elsewhere.
ForwardKeys VP Insights Olivier Ponti 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 report also contains data for the top city destinations with Antalya, Türkiye the best performer. It welcomed +66% more visitors than in the equivalent period in 2019. The extraordinary performance has been aided by several factors, most notably the weakness of the Turkish Lira plus an openness to visitors throughout the pandemic and the arrival of Russian visitors who could not travel to western destinations.
Other top city destinations are: San Jose Cabo, up +21%, Puerto Vallarta +13%, Punta Cana +12%, San Salvador +10%, Cancun +9%, Lahore +4%, Aruba +3%, Montego Bay flat and Islamabad -1%.
In addition to the rankings the company identified major trends that have characterised travel in 2022.
The invasion of Ukraine has also had a major impact on travel to and from Russia, although it has not caused long-haul travel to Europe to decline as much as expected, said the report. ForwardKeys expects that consequences of the war such as rising fuel prices and inflation will have a delaying effect on travel recovery.
The Asia Pacific region, which has seen some of the toughest travel restrictions, has started to recover. This recovery is being led by visits to friends and relatives, with Pakistan down by just -5% on 2019 levels, followed by Bangladesh at -8%. Leisure travel to the Maldives was only down -7%, with Fiji -22%, said ForwardKeys.
Ponti said: “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 Qatar 2022 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.”
Another trend is travel in premium cabins, partly fuelled by so-called “revenge travel” which has seen consumers willing to spend more on value-added travel services. This trend plus the increasing cost of fuel has driven a strong increase in fares, noted the analyst.
ForwardKeys’ full report, including an expanded version of destination rankings and more detail on travel trends is available at: https://forwardkeys.com/the-most-visited-destinations-2022-report-wtm/.
