Felix Genatio, Senior Business Data Analyst from Dohop, the travel technology provider, comments:
“Based on a relevant and wide data set that we have access to, Air Tickets sales for flights from the US to Europe in January to April this year were roughly similar to demand for flights from Europe to the US. But from May to July – i.e. the period when the dollar really starts rallying to the Euro – we saw US to Europe sales go up by an impressive 113%, whilst the Europe to US bookings only increased by 43%.
“To put that in perspective, this meant that US to Europe tickets sold were 4.5 million in July, for example, vs. just under 3 million for the Europe to US route. That’s an unprecedented gap.
“This trend is largely mirrored in search demand too, with US to Europe searches increasing substantially whilst Europe to US searches are relatively stable – so sales conversion rates remain in line with historical trends for airlines, but the overall volumes of searches and sales are much higher than usual in one direction.”
AIR TICKETS AND HOLIDAY SPENDING IN BARCELONA AND PARIS UP BY 659% AND 529%
Carlos Cendra, Director of Sales & Marketing at travel intelligence provider Mabrian:
“As international travel has recovered over the last year or so we have seen the total amount of money spent by Americans on holiday in Europe’s top destinations increase exponentially. For example, for the year up to the end of July spending in Barcelona and Paris is up by 659% and 529% respectively, compared to the previous period (i.e. August 2020 to 2021).
“However, whilst the overall spending is up the spend per person has dropped quite noticeably as it seems that during the previous period the few Americans that were traveling were big spenders – whereas now the average traveler has come back, reducing the average spend somewhat. For example in Barcelona that per person spend is down by 31% and in Seville by 40%, but Paris remains relatively stable with a reduction of just 7% perhaps suggesting that high-end shopping destinations might be an exception to this trend with both rich and average travelers spending similar sums.”
DOLLAR DENOMINATED B2B PLAYERS INCREASING EUROPEAN HOTEL BOOKINGS
Wolfgang Emperger, Senior Vice Presidentat hospitality technology provider Shiji Group comments:
“Generally at the trade level we’re seeing US located / dollar denominated tour operators and other B2B buyers of travel placing more bookings with European hotels because they can offer more competitive pricing than most other countries. Whilst at the consumer level we’re definitely noticing an increase in US travelers searching and booking travel in Europe – even into the off-season, with parity making it almost cheaper to book winter holidays in Europe than in the US.”
POUND TO EURO POTENTIAL IMPACT ON UK OUTBOUND TOURISM INTO EUROPE
Neville Isaac, Chief Customer Officer at Beonprice, the revenue management provider for hotels:
“Whilst the pound’s exchange rate to the euro has recovered a little since its heavy drop recently, it still remains well below the average for the rest of the year and 2021 too. At this stage though we’ve not yet seen that impacting demand but perhaps that will change.
“But working on the assumption that it stays low and that this plays on the minds of British tourists when booking a holiday, we should not forget that the pound is also low against the dollar, which is important to consider as often British travellers go to US when the dollar is weak – so that’s not an option for them.
“In fact the strong dollar is a real benefit for European destinations as they are seeing higher than usual levels of demand from US travellers wanting to take advantage of this once in a generation opportunity for a much cheaper European trip. This means that any potential downturn in UK visitors to Spain would be more than compensated by the uptick in US visitors.
“Meanwhile for Spanish travel sellers the cheaper than normal pound is an opportunity to start selling trips to the UK, so again the industry could potentially benefit overall.”
