International travel to rise by 5% in 2018, highest in last 20 years

Thursday, March 8, 2018

The year 2017 has been an exceptionally awesome year in terms of global travel.

Europe was the main growth trigger as both a source market and a destination region. Worldwide the number of outbound trips has risen by 6.5% reaching nearly 1.2 billion international tours in 2017.

In addition for the first time since IPK surveys the impact of terrorism on global travel, terror sensitivity has declined and destinations appear as ‘safer’ than before.

The findings are based on the fresh results of World Travel Monitor® that is an annual survey analyzing the outbound travel behavior in over 60 nations across the world covering 0% of the international outbound demand. Trends for the initial eight months of 2017 can be discovered in the ITB World Travel Trends Report that is published yearly by ITB Berlin.

In 2017, Europe was the strongest source region for global travel with an overall rise of 7% as compared to last year followed by North and Latin America with both 6% and Asia 5%.

Europe was also able to profit to the maximum extent with 8% more trips in 2017.

Spain occupies the lead with the USA and Germany ranking second and third respectively. France and Italy grabbed the fourth and fifth successful destinations. Speaking in terms of holiday types city trips have been the main growth driver last year with an increase of 18%.

Beach holidays that represent the largest holiday market share increased by 9%. On the other hand tour holidays worldwide declined by 1%.

Overtourism has made headlines across the world recently on account of record tourist numbers at several destinations that prompted well-publicized protests by residents and diverse measures by regional authorities.

IPK International had conducted a special survey among global travellers in February 2018. The report portrays that 24% of all global tourists felt that the destination they visited was overcrowded.

But then nearly 9% said that the overcrowding actually impacted the quality of their outbound trip.

The cities that were impacted the most were Mexico City (23%), Shanghai (22%)¸Venice (20%), Beijing (19%), Hong Kong (18%), Istanbul, Amsterdam and Florence (17% each) and Barcelona (16%).

For the fifth time IPK International conducted a special survey on the influence of terror threats on international travel behavior in main source markets worldwide in February 2018.

The study revealed that for 37% of international travellers the recent instability and terror warnings would be having an impact on their travel plans for 2018 as compared to 41% in October 2017.

IPK International expects that international outbound trips would increase by nearly 5% in 2018.

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