World Travel & Tourism Council Forecasts Major Increase in International Travel

The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) in partnership with ForwardKeys, predicted a major increase in global international flights this year during its 21st Global Summit in Manila, Philippines this week.

With the shadow of the Omicron variant no longer looming, 2022 is expected to provide destinations across the world with greater numbers of international travelers than the past two years.

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Even some destinations, according to the data, are already surpassing their pre-pandemic levels, like warm-weather destinations Aruba, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Jamaica.

Compared to last year, the figures for the first two quarters of this year are showing triple-digit growth for inbound flight bookings across the globe. Europe has seen a 350 percent surge from last year in this year’s first quarter alone, while arrivals to destinations in the Asia-Pacific region rose 275 from the same time last year.

“WTTC 2022 booking data from ForwardKeys is a firm signal of the strong recovery of the global Travel & Tourism sector,” said WTTC President & CEO Julia Simpson. “Travel to the Asia-Pacific region shows impressive signs of improvement as destinations gradually reopen their borders to visitors, in line with customer demand.”

The most popular international destinations continue to be in the Caribbean and in Latin America, though India, Pakistan, Iceland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, France, Tanzania, Qatar and Egypt also make the top twenty most popular destinations for international arrivals this year.