Still buoyant 2015 but terror affects 40% travel plans

Report says terror at top of agenda: search on for safe destinations

The latest report from consultancy IPK International in association with the ITB says that although tourism continues to be buoyant. But with the recent terror attacks in popular holiday destinations like Egypt and Turkey, as well as the attacks in Paris, the international tourism industry is looking at 2016 with skepticism.

Despite the fact that many destinations faced challenges in 2015, overall worldwide outbound travel grew by 4.6% reaching over a billion international trips says IPK.

Not only are people travelling more, they are also spending more over the years. Average spending per outbound trip increased by 4% to 1,825 USD. The continuous trend of more trips and higher expenditure generated a 50% increase in global turnover in the past 6 years, as per the latest results of IPK’S World Travel Monitor®.

But they are also becoming more frightened of potential outrages and modifying their plans accordingly.

In February 2016 IPK International conducted a special survey in the 42 most important source markets worldwide for international tourism with 50.000 respondents.

The study revealed that instability and travel warnings will have an effect on 40% of international traveller’s plans.

• 15% of international travelers indicated that they will not travel abroad in 2016 or will only go on domestic trips within their own country.
• 25% stated that they will still be travelling abroad, yet only to destinations they perceive as safe.

This obviously leads to the crucial question of what destinations are perceived as safe?

The annual survey analyzes the outbound travel behavior in more than 60 countries worldwide, which covers more than 90% of the global outbound demand.

Says IPK, Asia remains the number one source of global demand increases, where trips from China alone increased by 25% last year, representing a plus of 8 million trips in 2015.

Europe (together with North America) on the other hand has shown one of the lowest growth rates in the past few years. In absolute terms however, Europe remains the number one source market with more than half of the world outbound travel volume.

For the top countries of origin for international travel, Germany still takes the lead, followed by the USA and Great Britain, as well as China and France. Moreover, it is remarkable that 85% of the entire global outbound growth in 2015 has been generated by only 10 countries of origin.

Asia inbound took the lead in terms of the highest growth rate, followed by North America and Europe.

However, in total numbers, Europe as a destination receives three times more international trips than Asia. Comparing inbound performance by individual destinations, USA is slightly ahead of Spain, followed by Germany.

And in 2016? "Worldwide we expect global outbound trips to increase by 3 percent. However, without the impact of terrorism these days, we would be able to predict a growth rate of 4.5 percent", said Rolf Freitag during his ITB presentation.

The recent terrorist attacks have led to an unusually large uncertainty when planning a trip in 2016. According to the World Travel Monitor®, Asians will again travel abroad more in 2016, although at a lower growth rate compared to previous years. Slight growth is predicted from USA, but a decline from Canada cannot be ruled out. European outbound travel is expected to grow marginally, in particular from the Netherlands, UK, Switzerland and Germany. Overall IPK predicts an increase of 4% from Asia, 2% from Europe and stagnation overall from the Americas.

The World Travel Monitor® with around 500.000 interviews in over 60 countries is the largest continuous tourism study of its kind.

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