Wouter Geerts

We often talk about Europe as a single travel destination, but it exists of 44 sovereign countries with an immensely heterogeneous tourism offering. As a result, the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic are also heterogeneous.

The coronavirus has hit Europe hard, but the region will continue to receive accolades as the largest destination and largest source market for many years to come. Let's brush up on our understanding of European travelers, and see how COVID-19 has impacted their travel patterns.

The past year has been abysmal for the travel industry, but we've seen a few green shoots. Let's build on that as we move into 2021.

November: The U.S. chose a new president and vaccine manufacturers showed promising test results, but Europe saw coronavirus cases rising and the Singapore-Hong Kong bubble burst before it even took off. Out of it all came some surprising frontrunners.

Early data shows that hotels' direct bookings are gaining market share during the pandemic, with both brand.com and phone making ground during this time of lower demand. Is this permanent, and if so, which other channels will lose out?

Getting your hotel tech demands right is never an easy process. Why should tech for hotel distribution be any different? Hoteliers end up working with many vendors to help grasp demand, set rates. and get rooms on the right channels. Here's some clarity to figure out that morass.

The Skift Recovery Index has been tracking the performance of the travel industry since the beginning of the year, through the major downturn in April, seeing it crawl back up during the summer, and then entering a second dip in September. October saw very little movement, but a few green shoots are there to look forward to.

The hotel distribution landscape is complex, with hotel rooms being sold and promoted in many different channels. Covid-19 has certainly impacted how and where hotel rooms are being distributed, but it is unlikely this disruption will be sustained long-term. That’s not to say that disruption isn’t coming, though.

It was always going to be hard to maintain the upward trend of travel recovery with coronavirus cases rising rapidly around the world. Europe and North America in particular have shown dropping performances after relatively strong summer months.

By early April, the travel industry's performance stood at 16 percent compared to last year. Since then, recovery has taken shape differently in each of the 22 countries Skift tracks, but still no country records above 60 percent of pre-Covid performance.