Skift Travel News Blog

The tourism revenue of the United Arab Emirates surpassed $5 billion in the first half of this year, compared to $3 billion in the same period last year. The number of hotel guests that the country received rose to 12 million — registering a 42 percent year-on-year growth. 

The country expects a stronger performance this winter as scores of football fans would be flocking the region to catch the Federation Internationale de Football Association World Cup being hosted in neighbouring Qatar.

Since Qatar, with its limited accommodation facilities, would be hosting the most geographically-compact world cup in the history of the tournament, the economic impact of the event would also extend to other countries in the Gulf Coooperation Council.

Gulf carriers would also be operating shuttle flights to ferry football fans from neighbouring countries to Doha, the venue for the World Cup between November 21 and December 18.

Dubai airport also reported that it had handled 27.8 million passengers in the first half of this year, up more than 160 percent from the same period last year.

Based on the results of the first half of the year, the airport has readjusted its annual forecast for this year from 58.3 million passengers to 62.4 million.

Over 7 million international visitors visited Dubai during the first half of 2022, registering a 183 percent year-on-year increase, according to Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism. In 2021, Dubai received a total of 7.28 million international visitors.

The average hotel occupancy rate in Dubai in the first half of 2022 was 74 percent, 12 percent higher than the rate in the same period last year, which stood at 62 percent.

During the first half of 2022, the average daily rate of hotels in Dubai was $154 while the occupied room nights reached 18.47 million and revenue per available room rose to $147. With this, Dubai has emerged third in the world in terms of revenue per available room, after Paris and New York. 

Saudi Arabia’s government plans to call its new multi-billion-dollar international airline RIA, according to reports.

The plan is for it to be a premium global superconnector, like Emirates, Qatar and Etihad, as the kingdom continues its ambitious Vision 2030 tourism plan.

It wants to increase the number of air routes from about 100 to 250.

RIA will become Saudi’s second national carrier, based out of Riyadh, with Saudia, which operates from Jeddah, focusing on religious traffic bringing pilgrims to the country’s holy sites, especially during the Hajj pilgrimage.

Budget carriers Flynas and Flyadeal would then concentrate on low-cost domestic and regional travel and near-international routes. It remains unclear if any of the three existing airlines would feed traffic to the new airline.

The kingdom has been working on the launch for the past 12 months, with the new venture backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the report added.

Saudi Arabia is also making it easier for millions of tourists to enter the kingdom by streamlining and relaxing its visa options for residents from multiple countries. Overall the country wants to target 30 million international transit passengers by 2030, compared to under 4 million currently.

Europe’s Wizz Air will also land in Saudi Arabia this December.

Indians wanting to visit the U.S., may have a long wait ahead of them as appointment slots for visas are not available anytime sooner than 2024. You heard that right — almost a two-year wait for visa appointments!

A backlog of visa applications at the U.S. embassy coupled with consular staffing gaps created by the pandemic have led to the increased waiting time.

Skift accessed the website of the U.S. State Department on Thursday and discovered that the average wait time for visa appointments for a tourist visa was around 1.5 years across all five consulates in India.

At the consulate’s New Delhi and Hyderabad offices the waiting time for a tourist visa appointent was more than 600 days while the wait for a student visa appointment was 458 days for both cities.

In Mumbai and Kolkata the visitor visa waiting period is a little under 600 days, while the waiting period would be more than 450 days for those seeking student visa appontment from these cities.

The tourist visa appointment wait was the shortest in Chennai — 491 days, while for student visa applicants the wait time was 465 days.

And if that wasn’t enough the website went on to note that while the estimated wait time for an interview appointment can change weekly, the estimates do not guarantee the availability of an appointment.

An earlier Skift interview had noted how the time being taken to process visas is creating a problem for travel agents and tour operators.

The U.S. embassy in India in a statement noted that efforts are being made to reduce wait times and backlogs by onboarding and training new employees. “The U.S. State Department has doubled consular hiring of US officers this fiscal year over last year, and newly trained employees are making their way to overseas consular adjudicator positions, including in India,” read the statement.

American tourists are flocking to the UK over other European destinations, new data shows.

Post-Covid pent-up demand has collided with the strong dollar, according to the latest figures from travel agency Trip.com, with a 678 percent surge in searches for U.S. to UK flights in the first six months of 2022, compared to the same period last year.

Overall, its inbound transatlantic booking data showed actual bookings from the U.S. to Europe increased 246 percent.

Booking values are up by 37 percent.

Spain came a close second regarding consumer interest, with a 614 percent increase in flight searches from the U.S., followed by Italy (577 percent) and France (491 percent.)

Trip.com’s Americas chief said travelers appeared to be taking advantage of the weaker European currency.

“We believe the increased value of the strong U.S. dollar versus the weaker euro and fall in the value of Pound Sterling means that US travelers have so much more buying power in Europe, which has helped to mark the continent’s return once more as a major destination for the U.S. market,” said Rich Sun, Trip.com Group’s general manager for the Americas.

The difference in value translates to a 10-15 percent discount, compared to the same time last year.

Tourism in Florida during the first half of this year surpassed the level during the comparable pre-pandemic period of 2019. Visit Florida, the state’s tourism marketing agency, published the numbers this week. It ballparked that the state drew 69 million visitors in the year through June 30.

Florida has done well at attracting international travelers, but it is still beneath 2019 levels. The state had 3.071 million overseas travelers, including a hefty number of Canadians, during the first half of 2022.

Last year approximately 45 percent of foreign travelers into the U.S. as a whole visited Florida. The next-highest attractor of foreign visitors was New York state, with 22 percent.

The number of Australians leaving for international trips has been more than 80 percent above the number of incoming visitors to the country.

Reporting on Friday, The Australian (paywalled) said:

Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed in May 420,110 people traveled abroad for a short-term trip, 81 percent more than the 231,480 short-term arrivals. The gap was more than double that of May 2019, when the number of outbound travelers was 39 percent greater than visitors.

The Australian quoting tourism data from the ABS.

The pattern creates a problem for domestic tourism destinations, who are not only losing foreign visitors but also domestic travelers going abroad instead.

The problem is of a manageable size and hopefully short-term. When viewed in context. Inbound travelers were now at 34 percent of pre-pandemic levels, while outbound travelers were at 45 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

But the international visitor gap is still a real problem for businesses struggling to hold on for the rebound now beset with rising costs for labor, supplies, and energy.

See the Australian Bureau of Statistics tourism data here.

Around 4.3 million international visitors came to the United States in May, amounting to 64 percent of its May pre-pandemic volume, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office. This volume was reported for May, the last month before the U.S. lifted its testing Covid requirement for inbound international travelers.

Canada (1.3 million), Mexico (1 million), UK (327,000), India (149,000) and Germany (130,000) were the U.S.’s top source markets in May. These source markets accounted for 67.2 percent of total international arrivals. 

The top 20 source markets in May 2022 saw a change in their makeup compared to pre-pandemic May 2019.  Chile, the Dominican Republic and Peru placed in the top 20, while China, Taiwan and Switzerland did not.

Outbound international travel totaled 6.9 million, up 87 percent from May 2021 and amounting to 80 percent of its May pre-pandemic volume. Mexico was the top travel destination for U.S. citizens with 2.7 million visits. Combined year-to-date, over 60 percent of departures were for Mexico and the Caribbean, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office.

New Zealand may be getting an official name change in our lifetime. The New Zealand Parliament might change the country’s name to Aotearoa, which is Māori for “long white cloud,” and restore cities and towns to their original Māori names.

Shedding the island’s colonial names could sustainably boost its tourism industry. When historically marginalized communities reclaim leadership of their lands, destinations often realize substantial benefits, which can include new marketing opportunities, improved destination management, higher visitor numbers and a better experience for visitors and residents. 

The discussion to change the country’s names kicked off when the Māori Party launched a petition to officially rename the country Aotearoa last year. The petition also called on Parliament to begin a collaborative process to officially restore the original Māori names for all towns, cities and places across the country by 2026.

The petition has collected more than 70,000 signatures and will be considered by a parliamentary committee that could recommend a vote in Parliament, put it to a nationwide referendum or not take action.

A significant share of the public desires some change to the country’s name. Over 40 percent said they want to replace it with Aotearoa or include Aotearoa in the official name, while nearly 60 percent want to keep the name, according to a 2021 1News Colmar Brunton poll.

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The Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) published an eye-catching report on Thursday that found that Ireland was among the top five costliest European destinations when it comes to accommodation, food, beverages, and getting from place to place domestically. That’s not good news if Ireland wants to win back its full share of tourism in the post-pandemic recovery.

Ireland is the priciest European nation for alcohol, more than twice the European average. It’s the second most expensive for transport; the third-most expensive for food and non-alcoholic beverages; and the fourth most expensive for restaurants and hotels.

For example, the average cost of Irish hotels has risen by 21.4 percent from €136.71 in May 2019 to €165.97 in May 2022, according to global hospitality analytics company STR.

Costs are partly being driven up by a reduced supply post-pandemic and from the housing of Ukrainian refugees, reduced staffing because of a labor crunch which means not all occupancy can be served, and soaring costs for energy that are being passed along to consumers.

“”With the reduced tourism VAT rate of 9% scheduled to revert to 13.5% in February 2023, Ireland will be amongst the top rate for visitors on accommodation and food across Europe.” — ITIC report

Citing a substantial increase in Airbnb listings, UK government agencies Wednesday issued an “open call for evidence” about the impact of short-term rentals, and floated remedies such as physical inspections of properties and a registration requirement.

The UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, as well as two MPs stated that the call for evidence would last 12 weeks. The announcement cited a 33 percent increase in Airbnb’s UK listings in the 2017-2018 period.

The aim is to improve the lives of people living in tourism destinations, and to understand the impact on housing, among other goals. the announcement said.

The announcement stated:

“The scheme, proposed in a new government review looking at the impact of increases in short-term and holiday lets in England, could involve physical checks of premises to ensure regulations in areas including health and safety, noise and anti-social behaviour are obeyed.

“Further measures the Government is considering include a registration ‘kitemark’ scheme with spot checks for compliance with rules on issues such as gas safety, a self-certification scheme for hosts to register with before they can operate, and better information or a single source of guidance setting out the legal requirements for providers.”

Reacting to the announcement, Merilee Karr, chair of the UK Short Term Accommodation Association and CEO of UnderTheDoormat, urged the government to distinguish between short-term rentals that hosts live in and those that are investment properties.

Karr said her association has previously called for a national registration plan as a precursor to collecting data and to develop any policies. She said short-term rentals “play a vital role in the English tourism economy, contributing to local jobs and businesses, providing a vital income stream for many individuals and families at this time of rising cost of living.”