The UAE has emerged as the most popular destination for leisure travel in MENA as travellers take to the skies again, following over two years of pent-up demand amidst global travel restrictions.
Another popular MENA destination amongst Europe-based travellers is Egypt, followed by Jordan, said the CEO of Skyscanner John Mangelars.
In an exclusive interview with Arabian Business, Mangelars also talked about the future of travel tech and how it is increasingly relevant in the post-pandemic world many countries still have travel restrictions to be navigated and understood.
What are the latest travel trends from the region in the post-pandemic economy?
Overall, the MENA region is recovering well and inbound demand is 90 percent of 2019 levels year to date. Based on the number of searches on our platform, the UAE is the most popular MENA destination for global leisure travellers, followed by Egypt and Jordan respectively.
The UAE has seen strong interest among European travellers from the UK, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, as well as travellers from USA, Turkey and Israel with direct flights available for Israeli travellers.
Similar to the UAE, Egypt is witnessing popularity among European travellers from the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, with demand ranging from 80-83 percent above 2019 levels year to date from these markets. In addition, domestic travel within Egypt (based on redirected tourism) has increased by 93 percent YTD compared to 2019 levels.
Jordan is a popular destination for European travellers from UK, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands as well as travellers from Canada and Hungary, with demand ranging from 30-95 percent of 2019 levels year to date from these markets.
We’ve also seen 47 percent search increase from UK travellers to Saudi Arabia compared to 2019, as well as a massive 724 percent increase from USA travellers to Qatar.
How is the summer season shaping up for travel in the region?
Booking horizons are still relatively short term; the majority of travellers are booking 7-29 days ahead. The booking windows of over 90 days are still lagging, 5 percent below 2019 levels, however, we are seeing an upward trend here, as well as for booking windows 30-59 days ahead, suggesting travellers are thinking further ahead to summer.
John Mangelars ,CEO of Skyscanner. Image: Supplied
What is the future of travel from a tech perspective?
I see metasearch playing a critical role as travel bounces back leveraging smart technology to solve for global traveller challenges. People come to us to research travel, find a good price and then book. The ability to easily distil must-know information and then compare the options gives them the confidence to make the right booking choice for them.
There’s a genuine need right now for metas. Travel is and always has been relatively complex; now, when you factor in different countries’ requirements and approach to inbound and outbound travel, it’s more complex than ever before.
Travellers are far less likely to know where they can go or what is even available for them. In fact, around half of the travellers that come to Skyscanner don’t have a fixed destination or dates in mind – this is why our ‘Explore Everywhere’ search function is so popular, helping travellers discover lots of places to visit and the deals available to them.
Borders reopening at different times in different countries, coupled with challenges for the airline sector around matching supply with demand mean that even more travellers will be searching without a specific destination in mind. They need to quickly and easily understand where they can travel, which routes are open, how much it costs and what the situation will be on the ground. Meta players are perfectly suited to cater for this.
At a broader industry level, we need to see more investment in interoperability of tech solutions to facilitate the ease of travel between different countries. There were great strides forward during the pandemic – we saw new apps being built in record time to enable travellers to upload health documentation and the travel industry respond faster than ever to changing requirements and restrictions. But it is all made harder by the backend technology which doesn’t necessarily link up the way it should do. Further development and collaboration in this space will facilitate a quicker and more forward-thinking recovery for travel.
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