IPK report assesses 2019 travel trends

Despite the cancellation of ITB Berlin 2020, the conference updated its global travel report on worldwide travel trends in 2019.

According to the IPK Worldwide travel trends 2020 report, international tourism continued to grow in 2019, though not quite as strongly as before. Asia again recorded the highest growth in international travel, while Latin America saw a decline.

Interest in Asia as a travel destination likewise showed an upward trend. Trips to Europe were popular too. After moderate increases, city breaks came back with strong growth.

Asked about the terror threat of individual destinations, the majority of global outbound travellers still rank Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia as particularly unsafe. The possibility of terror in these countries is seen as very high. With regard to safety, the USA, Mexico, South Africa and France also have a poor image. In contrast, travel destinations like Scandinavia, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Portugal as well as Australia and Canada are perceived as safe.

For the global outbound travel market, IPK forecasted for 2020 a growth of 4%. Outbound trips by Asians were expected to record the highest growth with 5%. For European outbound trips, a growth rate of 3 to 4% was expected and for the Americans of 3%. These predictions were made before the COVID-19 virus went global so will now be wrong.

Outbound trips from Eastern Europe recorded a higher growth rate than those from Western Europe. Looking at Europe’s individual source markets, noticeable is the above-average growth in Eastern European countries, which was much higher than in Western Europe. 2019 saw growth in outbound trips from Russia, Poland and Czech Republic.

After stagnating in 2018, Spain, Europe’s most popular holiday destination by far, achieved a slight growth again. The outperforming destinations were Turkey, Portugal and Greece. Germany registered an above-average increase in visitors from Europe.

Outbound travel from North America grew while outbound trips from Latin America witnessed a relatively steep decline. In North America the driving force was outbound trips of US-Americans with a strong increase. In addition to some countries in South America, such as Argentina, the high-volume source market Mexico was the main reason for this negative development, with a decline in outbound travel

A closer look at the latest figures shows a further upward trend in trips from Asia to destinations within Asia. European countries registered a slight increase in travellers from Asia. Per trip, Asian travellers spend considerably more than other nationalities despite shorter stays. Among Asians, city breaks remained by far the most popular form of outbound travel. While Asians continued to rely heavily on the Internet for information and bookings, half of Asian travellers still attached great importance to the personal advice offered by travel agencies.

Despite a large population and economic development India is not one of Asia’s high-volume source markets for outbound trips. It ranked fifth, a long way behind China, South Korea, Japan and even Taiwan. The main beneficiaries of India’s growth in outbound travel were destinations in Asia, whose market share rose to 70% in 2019. Destinations in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan were in particularly high demand and reported double-digit growth.