General Industry

Ireland Among Top Four European Countries For Flight Search Growth

By Dave Simpson
Ireland Among Top Four European Countries For Flight Search Growth

Ireland is among the top four European countries for flight search growth at present, according to hotel revenue management systems company Lybra.

Data included in Lybra's latest Destination travel report has revealed that flight searches in Ireland have grown 13% month-on-month, which ranks it behind in the top two European countries at present for flight growth in Europe - Austria (+28%) and Portugal (+19%) - and on par with Spain (+13%).

Destination Travel Report

Composed by Lybra Destination Data Specialist Michela Ciccarelli, Lybra's latest Destination travel report states, "Europe's travel sector has still not taken off, in the way that we had hoped: despite the introduction of the Green Pass and the easing of restrictions, the recovery of pre-COVID flows is still a long way away from our current reality. The increase in demand during the summer season did give a boost to European tourism; however, the boost was cancelled out by the Delta variant outbreak, leaving the European travel market stagnant. Over the last thirty days, demand for flights to Europe has remained largely static, varying by only 2.1% compared to the same period last year.

"Half of the European countries recorded a negative or static variation: the worst performances were recorded in Greece, where searches decreased by 1.8 million (-17%); in Croatia, where searches decreased by -1.2 million (-39%); and Turkey where searches decreased by 628,000 (-7%)."

Greece And Turkey

The report adds, "Together with Spain and Italy, Greece and Turkey were the countries that contributed most to the recovery of European tourist demand. Greece was the forerunner in 2021 because of the government’s ambitious plans to relaunch the sector, organising tourist corridors in February and opening the borders to vaccinated tourists right away; with this plan, the country decided to take a risk to save a key sector of the country's economy. Unfortunately, precisely because of this plan, the health situation in Greece worsened considerably in the middle of the summer season, resulting in it no longer being considered a safe destination for many European and non-European countries. As pictured in the following graph, searches for flights to Greece have plummeted and continue to decline steadily since the first weeks of July.

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"Turkey has also invested heavily in the recovery of tourism and, like Greece, decided to relax restrictions to entice travellers. For this reason, Turkey was also among the most desired destinations for tourists in April and demand was very high. Despite the worsening health situation in Turkey, the main cause of the collapse in demand was not COVID, but a series of devastating fires that destroyed Turkey's most popular beach destinations. Turkish tourism is going through a very difficult period but, as you can see from the graph, since the beginning of September demand is starting to grow again."

About Destination

Destination is a market intelligence project created by Lybra to share real-time, region-specific statistics, information and trends in the world of tourism.

Every day, Lybra analyses millions of datasets - data collected from thousands of hotels' PMS and flight search data from a leading metasearch booking engine - to help hoteliers "look ahead to better understand the present."

The aim of Destination is to give hoteliers and DMOs a more expansive view of tourism news and trends in different regions around the world.

© 2021 Hospitality Ireland – your source for the latest industry news. Article by Dave Simpson. Click subscribe to sign up for the Hospitality Ireland print edition.