12 Skift Research Charts Explaining Covid’s Impact on Travel in 2021
We could have filled a multi-volume encyclopedia with everything that has happened in the past 12 months. Instead, we settled for 12 telling charts - Wouter Geerts
Recovery Has Been Uneven
Skift Research has been tracking the recovery of the flight, hotel, short-term rental, and car rental sectors in 22 countries since the start of the pandemic. One continuing truth is that recovery is extremely unequal, with the latest November 2021 data showing that North and Latin America are close to full recovery, while Asia Pacific lingers around 50 percent of pre-pandemic performance levels.
For more information about travel’s recovery, check Skift Research’s Recovery Index.
Domestic Travel Remained Strong
While the travel industry is clearly still impacted by the Covid pandemic, there are certain areas where we did see strong recovery in 2020. Dometic tourism is one of those areas, and Skift Research survey data shows that this strong performance continued. While we saw trip participation increase in 2021, international trip share barely increased, with domestic travel still preferred amongst U.S. travelers.
To better understand U.S traveler behavior and sentiment, check the latest U.S. Travel Tracker.
International Trips Will Not Recover Until 2024
Despite a significant rollout of the vaccine in 2021, albeit unequal, cross-border travel dropped even further than 2020 levels. The first quarter in 2020 was, of course, strong, while 2021 did not see a single quarter which came even close to 2019 levels. According to our estimates, 2022 will see the first annual increase in international travel since the pandemic began. We don’t see a full recovery of cross-border travel until 2024 at the earliest.
