In 2022 the travel industry experienced a significant recovery. Worldwide, outbound trips increased substantially year on year, but without regaining 2019 levels. Variations were evident with regard to individual continents, destinations and travel markets. Whereas outbound travel in Asia lagged far behind pre-pandemic levels, international trips of Europeans and Americans were much closer to 2019 figures. In 2023, despite all the crises and uncertainties, interest in travel abroad is consistently high, so that very little stands in the way of international tourism recovering further in 2023.

Significant increase in outbound travel in 2022

IPK’s World Travel Monitor® stated that worldwide, outbound travel in 2022 rose by 90 per cent year on year, equivalent to a global volume of almost 700 million trips in 2022. Compared to outbound travel before the pandemic in 2019, this is 66 per cent of pre-crisis levels. Thus, 2022 represented a significant turnaround towards recovery. Looking at individual continents, trends varied however. International travel from Europe rose by 92 per cent, from North America by 87 per cent and from South America by 70 per cent. These growth rates resulted in outbound travel almost fully recovering or reaching three-quarters of previous levels. International travel from Asia remained substantially below 2019 figures, while still showing a 90 per cent year-on-year increase in 2022. The difference in trends compared with other continents was mainly the result of tight Covid policy restrictions in China, which is the largest source market. Outbound travel in 2022 was highest in the USA, followed by Germany and the UK.

Most popular destinations in 2022

With regard to destinations, sun and beach holidays in Turkey and Spain were especially popular, almost regaining 2019 levels. Year on year, the UK also reported high three-digit growth rates above the global average. Overall in 2022, many destinations hardest-hit by pandemic restrictions in 2020 and 2021 attained above-average results.

According to the Destination Performance Index (DPI) developed by IPK, in 2022 the most popular travel destination was the Maldives. In the case of all international holiday trips the World Travel Monitor® asked whether travellers were satisfied with their trip, would recommend it to others and whether they would return, and evaluated the results. The winner Maldives was followed by Dubai and Cyprus in second and third place.