#TradeTuesday: International Travel

By Tom Haynes

As we kick off August and the summer holiday season gets into full swing, we have taken a look at the state of the travel sector. With reports of continued disruption at airports and today’s announcement from airlines over cancelled flights, we want to know how this is affecting international travel.

• The first big takeaway is that despite this disruption, the demand for overseas travel is high. Search data from Expedia between January and May shows a 65% increase in searches for the peak holiday months of July and August. 
• Additionally, the data for overseas versus domestic holidays has flipped compared to this time last year, with 65% of searches for overseas destinations and 35% for staycations. 
• The classic holiday destinations offering beaches, mountains, and remote villages are all performing strongly, with Mallorca topping the list of destinations for UK travellers.
• City breaks are also back on the agenda this year with destinations such as like Paris, Barcelona and Istanbul all performing well. 
• Looking to long-haul destination, New York, Orlando, and Dubai are the most in-demand long-haul destinations. 
• This increase in international travel has not come at the expense of UK destinations, with many UK cities seeing increased demand from staycationers, including London (+55%), Edinburgh (+5%), Liverpool (+15%), and Blackpool (+20%).
• As with all good trade, this flow of travel is going both ways with searches for UK destinations from overseas travellers increasing five-fold compared to the same period last year. The greatest demand has come from the USA, Canada, Germany and Sweden.

We have put together a list of the top 10 destinations for UK travellers, as well as the top 10 destinations for overseas visitors to the UK.