International air travel rises again in 2022 but still behind pre-pandemic levels

Thursday, March 2, 2023

While international air travel climbed considerably again in 2022, it lingered well behind pre-pandemic levels in 2019, as per the findings of IPK International’s newest World Travel Monitor on global outbound travel trends in 2022 which was presented in ITB Berlin. Globally, outbound travel also climbed significantly year on year, although not to 2019 levels.

As in previous years, the majority of overseas travel was by air (market share: 60 per cent). In comparison to 2021, growth in car travel was somewhat below average. Train travel increase was much higher than the average. The survey findings on sustainable travel reflected this. As a result, around 20% of interviewees stated that sustainability / environmental issues affected their choice of transportation for an outward trip in 2022.

The new IPK NEXT Media research, powered by pressrelations NewsRadar®, investigated international media reporting in the context of holidays and travel in 2022. It investigated the extent to which the media covered sustainable travel. As can be seen, topics of sustainable travel were widely covered in the media in 2022. 25% of tourism reporting in German media addressed the theme of sustainability.

While the average duration of an overseas journey in 2022 remained about the same as before the pandemic, travel expenditures per person and trip increased dramatically again, according to the Global Travel Monitor®. The average spending per night and person in 2022 was about 165 euros.

Stays became shorter, approaching almost pre-pandemic levels, as a result of an above-average increase in short breaks (one to three nights). These suffered a substantially higher drop during the pandemic’s final two years. Increases in travel expenses were driven mostly by increasing travel prices as a result of inflation and limited availability of flights and services. In contrast, the Global Travel Monitor® data revealed no change in the earnings of outbound travellers.

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