STR Insight Blog – Tourism outlook: A new spring in its step?
While acknowledging economic and geopolitical headwinds this short Insight Blog strikes a positive tone, suggesting that there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic regarding tourism demand in 2022 based on a consumer survey undertaken in February.
However, the survey found that the net propensity to travel at the present time (February being the date of the fieldwork) due to the current Covid-19 situation remained negative, more so for international than for domestic trips. Looking to a ‘Post-Covid-19’ situation the tables turned dramatically with a positive net propensity to take both domestic and international trips.
The proportion saying that Covid-19 was a major reason for their not having booked travel recently stood at 42%, considerably lower than the 67% back in the July 2021 wave of the study.
The top barriers to future travel cited by respondents were the potential hassle of quarantine and government legislation/restrictions.
Looking at the net interest in trips to different types of locations city breaks remain in negative territory, but less so than in earlier waves, while ‘countryside/outdoors getaway’ remain the type of trip to have seen the largest uptick in interest.
The blog ends by noting that while there are signs that Covid-19 is becoming less of a hindrance to travel pressure on consumer income and the war in Ukraine may temper the rather positive outlook suggested by the findings.