See What Regions of the World Are Fully Recovered: New Skift Travel Health Index

The Skift Travel Health Index is up to 89 points in January 2023, falling only short 11 percentage points from January 2019 travel performance levels. The January score is the highest achieved since the onset of the pandemic. With growing travel demand, we expect 2023 to be a powerful year for the travel sector.

In an attempt to further strengthen the Travel Health Index, we welcome two new data partners on board. TravelgateX and Nium will be providing us with valuable insights into the hotel and aviation sectors, further driving our pursuit of shaping a strong consensus view of industry performance.  

All Regions Start 2023 With Growth

Our latest January 2023 update of the Skift Travel Health Index shows that all regions displayed exceptional month-over-month growth with Latin America having long surpassed pre-pandemic performance. The North American region too has entirely recovered. The Middle East and Europe too aren’t far behind.

Sector Recovery Remains Nuanced

While there are regional differences in the shape and speed of recovery, we saw similar nuances between travel sectors, and this is set to continue in 2023.

Although sales volumes are lagging, hotels have adopted strong pricing to drive recovery. Hotel sales data from our new data partner TravelgateX shows that the Family segment has displayed exceptional growth over pre-pandemic numbers, as has Groups, when comparing January 2023 data with January data from previous years.

As already noted above, the Asia Pacific region has held back the aviation sector’s recovery. 

Aviation Index Scores by Region – Jan-23 growth over Dec-22

Data insights by Nium show that growth in the transaction value of flight booking has not been consistent across all countries. While some countries have observed an increase over 2022, they are still a long way from recovering to pre-pandemic levels in terms of the dollar value of flights booked.

More analysis can be found in our January 2023 Highlights report and on our Skift Travel Health Index data dashboard.

Skift Travel Health Index: January 2023 Highlights

Although not fully recovered, the travel industry gained substantial momentum at the start of the year. All regions have almost recovered from the pandemic blues, Asia Pacific being the only exception. With loosening travel restrictions and China reopening, we expect a stronger travel industry to be less uneven this year.

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