Articles tagged “skift travel health index”

Today's edition of Skift's daily podcast looks closer at tourism recovery across the world, huge airplane orders in India, and an expanding boutique hotel brand.

The Skift Travel Health Index continued to point to a full global travel recovery in May 2023. With 14 out of 22 countries having fully recovered and some overtaking pre-pandemic performance, we anticipate the index to soon significantly surpass 2019 levels.

For the first time since January 2020, the Skift Travel Health Index has topped 100, a sign that global tourism is now performing better than it did before the pandemic. Every region in our index showed growth over the last month.

India has all the cards to become the next mega source market for international travel, although major barriers still need to be overcome. The country has been performing extremely well in our Skift Travel Health Index.

The Asia Pacific region, aided by the reopening of China and the Lunar New Year is on the path to rapid recovery. While China gets ready to travel again, the global tourism industry needs to catch up with the growing demand.

Although not fully recovered completely, 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.

Skift Research is cautiously optimistic about travel's continued recovery in 2023, despite a growing likelihood of a recession in many countries. Travel is still under-indexed compared to the broader economy, and the reopening of Chinese borders provides a strong boost.

Economic worries might be catching up with the travel industry, but just in time China is starting to show signs of life.

Continuing uncertainties and headwinds suppressed growth in October, with the Skift Travel Health Index sitting around the 85 percent mark since June with little movement.

Data is highlighting the shift away from Asia as the epicenter of travel, moving towards the Middle East and Europe. With China looking at its zero-Covid policy as the long-term solution to beating the pandemic, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for the pendulum to swing back.