Bangkok, Paris and London have emerged as top three on a list of 100 most appealing destinations this summer (July 1 to August 31), according to ForwardKeys Flight Searches data, based on how extensively travel to them has been searched online.
ForwardKeys Flight Searches data covers many billions of searches a year, via an extensive selection of online travel agencies, airlines and metasearch companies including Google Flights, Kayak, Kiwi.com, Skyscanner, Wego, and more.
Compared to last year, Bangkok is up three places, pushing Paris off the top spot by a large margin. London holds its position in third place. In capturing 4th position, Bali’s capital, Denpasar, rose six places, pushing down Barcelona to 5th, Lisbon to 7th, Istanbul to 8th, Madrid to 9th and Palma Mallorca to 11th. A new entrant in the top ten was Athens, up one place from 11th, while New York rose two places from 8th in 2022 to 6th this year.
Impressive risers that charged into the top twenty were Tokyo, up 53 places to 13th, Kuala Lumpur, up 24 places to 14th, Singapore, up 14 places to 12th and Manila, , up 8 places to 19th. Their rise is principally explained by the relatively late relaxation of Covid-19 travel restrictions, which triggered a surge in interest.
Positions 21 – 100 include Cairo, Dubai, Marrakech and Tel Aviv-Yafo, among others.
Throughout the pandemic and at the start of the recovery, leisure travel to beach destinations has been in the lead. However, that is now starting to change, according to analysis of ForwardKeys’ air ticketing database. Compared to this time last year (2022), summer flight bookings to beach destinations are 22 per cent ahead; however, urban destinations are 42 per cent ahead, nature destinations are 45 per cent ahead and shopping destinations are 53 per cent ahead.
Looking at the global travel recovery, benchmarked against pre-pandemic (2019) levels, worldwide summer bookings are just 13 per cent behind. However, there is a huge difference geographically.
The strongest major source market is the USA, where summer outbound flight bookings are now 11 per cent ahead of 2019. It is followed by Canada, 4 per cent ahead. The UK is just 3 per cent behind and the EU 11 per cent behind. Latin America is the next best revived continental source market, 14 per cent behind. It is followed by India, 17 per cent behind, South Korea, 29 per cent behind, GCC countries, 36 per cent behind and China 69 per cent behind.
Other notable trends to emerge from a more in-depth analysis of flight bookings include the growth of London as a hub for multi-destination, long-haul trips to Europe, the attractiveness of music festivals and the greater speed of recovery in outbound travel from China compared to Japan.
“While the outlook for summer travel currently looks relatively rosy, there are a few reasons to be cautious. Inflation is high, so while consumers may again be travelling, they may not be spending quite so liberally. Also, if there is a late surge in demand, the recovery could be thwarted if operators are not prepared; and stories of travel chaos deter last minute bookings,” Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys, said.