Skyscanner: Travellers look to Asia Pacific as booking windows normalise

Global travel marketplace Skyscanner recently published a new report exploring the latest trends in global travel. Titled Skyscanner Horizons: Destination &  Booking Insights Q1 2023, the report explores extensive flight search and booking data from each region – the APAC, the Americas and EMEA – to provide a unique view of how travellers are thinking about travel over the next six months. Analysis of key indicators including booking windows segmented by haul type and trending destinations provides unrivalled insights for any business within the travel ecosystem. The report also features exclusive expert commentary on these trends from industry thought leaders such as Mike Ferguson from Skyscanner, Centre for Aviation’s Marco Navarria, and Nick Hall of Digital Tourism Think Tank. Mike Ferguson, Director of Destination Marketing at Skyscanner commented: “Globally, we’re seeing more travellers come to Skyscanner than ever before. It’s indicative of both the sector’s continued recovery and the exceptional travel demand across all regions. Destinations, particularly in APAC, are benefitting from increased search volumes compared to last year and, at the same time, long-haul booking windows are lengthening. Long-haul international travel has been slower to recover than other segments, but 2023 looks set to change that.”  Marco Navarria, Global Content and Marketing Director at CAPA said of the report: “Skyscanner’s important Horizons report once again reaffirms the industry results CAPA has seen within the Aviation industry. The report has highlighted that the majority of trending destinations for summer travel are in Asia Pacific. CAPA data shows that Asia Pacific airlines posted a +376.3% increase in Jan-2023 international traffic compared to Jan-2022, by far the strongest year-over-year rate among all the world’s regions, but off a very low base. Capacity rose 167.1% and the load factor increased 36.6 percentage points to 83.3%, the highest among the regions.” Key report findings for each region include: GLOBAL The majority of trending destinations for Q2 and Q3 travel are in APAC, with Japan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan benefitting +90 day booking windows for long haul travel are up across all regions signalling both traveller confidence and demand, with search share moving in line with pre-pandemic seasonal norms APAC Long haul travel top of mind for APAC travellers as booking windows increase in all segments from <1 week to +90 days APAC booking windows some way off returning to 2019 patterns across all haul types Taiwan, Laos and Japan are trending destinations for APAC travellers, with significant increases in search volumes compared to 2022 APAC travellers also looking for inspiration with ‘Everywhere’ a top trending search term, whilst European destinations Austria and Hungary see rising year-on-year search demand Japan, Thailand and Vietnam make up over two thirds of trending search volumes in Q2 and Q3 EMEA EMEA travellers looking ahead to summer as longer booking windows increase for both short and long haul travel All booking windows are tracking close to 2019 search behaviour as trip planning normalises EMEA travellers are eager to return to destinations in Asia with Taiwan, Japan and Laos seeing surging search demand compared to 2022. Destinations such as Saudi Arabia and China see high demand in the short term, with Malaysia, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam also trending throughout Q2 and Q3 Albania, the only trending European destination in the top 10, sees increased search demand year-on-year AMER AMER travellers looking ahead as longer booking windows, particularly 60-89 days, increase for all haul types Fluctuations in short haul booking windows vs 2019, while long haul returns to pre-pandemic norms AMER travellers are eager to return to destinations in Asia as the regions sees surging search demand compared to 2022. Other long-haul destinations such as Morocco, New Zealand and Norway are also trending throughout Q2 and Q3 Bucket list destination Fiji also sees increased year-on-year search demand particularly in July and August. For Editorial Inquiries Contact: Editor Matt Driskill at [email protected] For Advertising Inquiries Contact: Head of Sales Kay Rolland at [email protected]