Europe shows recovery signs in terms of international arrivals after a slow down during first semester of 2015
International arrivals in Europe 1 Apr – 30 Jun 2015 (% Var vs Prev year)
The latest results from the Air Travellers’ Traffic Barometer* produced by European Cities Marketing and ForwardKeys highlight that Europe shows recovery signs: after a flat growth in Q2 2015, expectations are high regarding Intra-European bookings for Q3 2015, with a 5.4% growth.
During Q2 2015 international arrivals are growing slowly
During second quarter of 2015, all international source markets grew by 1.1% compared to previous year, mostly driven by long-haul travellers (+2.4%).
The Intra-European market (standing for 60% of all arrivals in Europe) increased by a small 0.2%.
Africa was also in a negative trend this 2nd quarter of 2015 with a -10.7% decrease.
Asia & Oceania maintain a healthy growth while North America still benefit from a favourable currency exchange.
International bookings to Europe for Q3 2015 are encouraging
Middle East had a negative variation in Q2 2015 due to events such as the oil pricing slump which reduced the purchasing power and the business travels. Ramadan (from June 18 to July 17), has affected negatively this quarter, but the perspectives for Q3 are promising with a 25.2% growth of bookings from this area.
Africa is up by +7.5% for future arrivals based on issued booking up to 30 of June. The region should recover the growing path after a bad performance during 2014 due to Ebola’s crisis.
The standard profile for long haul trips to Europe: last minute decision, 1-2 people, 1 week
Stays between 1 to 8 days predominate in second quarter of 2015, and showed interesting increases. However, the shortest stay had a timid growth, almost flat, likely due to the slowdown in the business profile of Middle East visitors. Regarding the lead time, most common segment is still late bookers, who decide the final trend in the last minute. Solo and couple travellers remain the main part of the total arrivals (74%) but Groups segment (6+ pax), despite its low volume, maintains a healthy growth (+7.1%), mostly due to the Asian market.
All ECM members have exclusive access to the complete European Cities Marketing-ForwardKeys Air Travellers’ Traffic Barometer with all the graphs and analysis.
*This analyse is based on Air Reservation Data propriety of ForwardKeys® as of 30th June 2015.Perimeter: Includes air reservations made by passengers arriving in Europe and staying at least one night in destination, therefore excluding: “Transits”, “Day trips”, “One-way trips” and “Returns”.
Arrival period: 1 April – 30 June 2015 vs. 1 April – 30 June 2014.
Booking situation for next quarter: 1 July – 30 September 2015 vs. 1 July – 30 September 2014 according to bookings issued as of 30 June 2015 and as of 30 June 2014.
**ENDS**
* European Cities Marketing is a non-profit organisation improving the competitiveness and performance of leading cities of Europe by providing a platform for convention, leisure and city marketing professionals to exchange knowledge, best practice and widen their network to build new business. European Cities Marketing is promoting and linking the interests of 110 members from more than 100 major cities in 36 countries.
Contact information
Flavie Baudot, press@europeancitiesmarketing.com, +33 380 56 02 00
** ForwardKeys.com is a service of Forward Data S.L, a Market Research and Consulting Company registered in Spain. ForwardKeys is a Business Intelligence service bringing a new approach to operational traveller data intelligence for Hotels Chains, Tourism boards and Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) leveraging non confidential Air reservation information. ForwardKeys provides to:
‐ DMOs and Tourism Boards with travellers’ trends information and means to monitor and measure the impact of their marketing efforts to drive more business to their destination.
‐ Hotel chains with ways to quantify future demand and anticipate market trends to optimize sales, marketing and revenue management efforts, using traveller’s reservation, source market, arrival, return date and future travel information.
Contact information
Sébastien Cron, press@forwardkeys.com, +33 972 221 570