Travel

WHAT'S NEXT?: How we travel, where we travel and whether we travel at all will mean tremendous change in the decades ahead.

• [New] 2020 would see the lowest oil demand in 25 years: Even assuming that travel restrictions are eased in the second half of the year, we expect that global oil demand in 2020 will fall by 9.3 million barrels a day versus 2019, erasing almost a decade of growth.
• [New] Incorporating future mobility thinking into strategic investment planning is vital for sub-national transport bodies as the nature and methods of travel will change greatly over the coming years.
• [New] The number of people traveling abroad at the end of 2020 will be about 60% of last year's level, even if countries around the world begin relaxing their travel restrictions.
• [New] Assuming the international situation does not worsen significantly and borders are able to reopen by mid 2021, inbound international travel would start to resume in the second half of the forecast period.
• [New] US spending into South America is forecast to drop by 44.4% between 2020 and 2021 as travel restrictions due to COVID-19 have stymied visitor flows.
• [New] International tourism is down by 22% in quarter 1 of 2020 and could decline by 60% to 80% for 2020.
• [New] Global air passenger traffic will not return to pre-COVID levels until 2024, a year later than previously projected, as international travel curbs remain in place in most countries due to the coronavirus pandemic.
• [New] Global air traffic will not return to levels seen before the coronavirus pandemic until at least 2024, adding that new UK restrictions on travel with Spain had created a lot of uncertainty.
• [New] The recovery trajectory in international air travel is slower than initially expected, with industry experts such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) projecting a slower recovery of global passenger traffic in the near term.
• [New] Countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region are likely to lose billions of dollars in tourist spending in 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic, putting millions of jobs and several businesses at risk.
• The International Air Transport Association (IATA) does not expect air travel to reach 2019 levels until 2023 - at the earliest.
• Tourism, one of the hardest hit economic sectors, representing 10% of global GDP, may face a decline in international tourist arrivals of 58-78% during 2020, putting 100 to 120 million direct tourism jobs at risk.
• The South African government foresees that domestic leisure tourism will likely only be able to resume in December and international travel next year.
• For the global travel and tourism industry, employment losses are expected to top 100.2 million jobs in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Asia-Pacific market likely to see the biggest decline of approximately 63.4 million jobs.
• Inbound operators looking to put business into the UK are calling on Greater Manchester's suppliers to confirm their rates for 2021 so that they can begin booking international travel for next year.
• The Tourism Council of Thailand on Tuesday said it expects to see only an estimated 8 million foreign tourists in 2020, 80% down from last year, due to the impact from COVID-19 and air travel restrictions worldwide.
• A fall in demand in Poland's main trading partners will likely take its toll on exports in 2020, especially in the transport and tourism sectors.
• Exports are expected to drop sharply in 2020 because Hungarian exporters specialise in highly cyclical products (e.g. automotive), and in tourism and travel services which will remain constrained by physical distancing measures.
• Croatia's sizeable tourism sector, accounting for the majority of services exports, is expected to remain depressed throughout 2020 and to only gradually recover in 2021, owing to remaining disruptions in international travel.
• Disruptions in supply chains, the fall in domestic demand in Austria's main trading partners and the slow expected recovery in the tourism sector, put a drag on GDP growth in 2020-Q2, as exports are expected to fall more strongly than imports.
• A significant decline in general travel means a big impact on luxury retailers located in airports; according to the World Tourism Organisation, there will be as many as 1.1 billion fewer international travellers in 2020 than there were last year.
• The COVID-19 outbreak has had notable impacts on the Thai economy, particularly on tourism and merchandise exports, which were in turn affected by a sharp deterioration of demand from trading partners as well as supply chain disruptions.
• Government will provide a subsidy to Fiji Airways of around $60 million to develop attractive holiday packages in partnership with the hotel industry and tourist transfer operators for the first 150,000 tourists in FY2020 - 2021.

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Last updated: 15 August 2020