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• Experiential travel as a motive for a holiday has increased by 8 percentage points globally since 2019, with motivations to visit Europe following a similar pattern.
• Northern European countries are better positioned to capitalize on these new demand trends.

  Mabrian, a leading travel intelligence company, has presented its latest analysis on the evolution of travel motivations for 2024, with a specific focus on the changing trends for visiting Europe and the destinations projecting the best prospects for the upcoming year. The study, conducted through advanced methodologies, including sentiment analysis of travelers through active listening on social media and transactional data on future air connectivity, offers insights into the evolving trends in tourist interests in Europe and the well-positioned destinations.   Mabrian's analysis identifies a global increase in experiential travel, particularly reflected in Europe, specifically in active and natural tourism. Northern European countries lead this shift and position themselves as those best poised to capitalize on these new demand trends. Italy, in turn, tops the list of potential trending destinations for 2024, followed by France and Germany. The Piedmont region in Italy, New Aquitaine in France, and the East of England stand out as the top three destinations, emphasizing interest in a blend of cultural, natural, and gastronomic attractions with robust air connectivity.   Key conclusions for 2024   Some of the key conclusions from Mabrian's analysis focus on the global increase in experiential travel in European destinations, providing a new landscape for travel:  

1. Towards experiential travel: Mabrian's analysis indicates a global trend towards more experiential and less conventional travel motivations, with an 8% increase in experiential travel since 2019. Experiential tourism encompasses activities such as active, natural, gastronomic, and wellness experiences, while conventional tourism includes culture, sun and beach, family activities, nightlife, and shopping.
2. New european trends reflecting global change: Europe has experienced an equivalent 8% growth in experiential activities from 2019 to 2023, reducing the prominence of conventional motivations. Active and nature tourism emerge as the fastest-growing, gaining 5 and 3 percentage points, respectively.
3. Countries best positioned for experiential tourism: Countries in Northern Europe, including Iceland, Norway, Finland, Slovenia, and Switzerland, are better positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for experiential activities, with a share of over 60% in visitor interest.
4. Potential trending destinations for 2024: Mabrian identifies Italy as the leading country with the most potential destinations (four), followed by France and Germany with two each. The top 10 trending regions for 2024 also include the United Kingdom and Portugal.

  Top 3 trending destinations:  

1. Piedmont Region, Italy: Notable for destinations like Turin, Stresa, and Alba, Piedmont stands out with a balance of cultural and natural offerings. Gastronomic experiences feature prominently among experiential motivations, coupled with positive trends in flight accessibility.
2. New Aquitaine, France: Featuring destinations such as Bordeaux, Biarritz, and Limoges, this region stands out for its oenological and gastronomic products alongside active tourism. The region enjoys good and stable air connectivity.
3. East of England, United Kingdom: Including Cambridge, Essex, and Norfolk, this region achieves a balance between cultural and natural offerings, positioning it as a growing destination. Its solid and stable connectivity further supports its appeal.
4. To complete the top 10 trending destinations, notable mentions include: Occitania (France), Campania (Italy), North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Lombardy (Italy), Emilia-Romagna (Italy), the province of Hamburg (Germany), and the province of Lisbon (Portugal).

  For this study, over 380 million tourist mentions online from the period between January and October of this year have been analyzed and compared with the four previous years. This technique examines spontaneous conversations related to travel on social media (Big Data) through Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing, interpreting what motivates travelers to visit a place. Additionally, to identify destinations that will potentially be trending in the coming months, transactional data on future air connectivity has been utilized.   In conclusion, Mabrian's 2024 trend analysis reveals a dynamic shift towards experiential travel globally and specifically in Europe, highlighting Italy, France, and Germany as key players in the upcoming travel trends in 2024.   Carlos Cendra, CMO of Mabrian, comments, "While it is challenging to generalize trends today, given the disparity of segments and interests, it is crucial to identify the global and structural shift in travel motivations, especially among the new generations. Each destination possesses unique characteristics and a distinct tourism offering, but all must pay attention to the evolution of traveler motivations and strive to adapt their offerings as agilely as possible, given the competition is global and increasing."

 

• Compared to last year, Croatia anticipates higher tourism activity during the autumn and winter months, with specific months showing an increase of more than 20%.

  Mabrian, a leading travel intelligence company, has analyzed in a new study the low season opportunities for Croatia and the Mediterranean. The analysis was presented at the 7th edition of the Tourism 365 Conference that has taken place in Toplice, Croatia, this month.   This forum brought together both public entities in the tourism sector and major private companies to discuss opportunities for maintaining sustainable tourism activity throughout the south-eastern Mediterranean region all year round. The conference also featured prominent international speakers, including Carlos Cendra, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mabrian, who presented forecasts and analyses of tourism strengths and opportunities for Croatia and other Mediterranean countries.   The main conclusions of the study are:  

• A Seasonal Context with Room for Improvement. Croatia still has room for improvement during the considered low season months. When compared to the context and its closest competitors, the data indicates that the Southeast Mediterranean region is 9 percentage points more dependent on the high season than the average in the nearby Mediterranean, while Croatia is 16% more.
• Promising Prospects for the Low Season. One of the main takeaways from Mabrian's analysis is the promising outlook for Croatia in the coming months. It forecasts a 10% increase in tourism from September to March 24, compared to last year. In terms of growth, Croatia is expected to outperform Italy and Turkey during these months, although it has not yet reached the levels seen in Greece.

 

• Croatia Well Positioned for Travellers’ Motivations. According to the latest global travellers’ motivations study conducted by Mabrian, there is a consistent growth in experiential motivations for travel, substituting more conventional motivations. Analysis of travellers sentiment and preferences, based on over 400 million interactions on social media, reveals that interests in Active, Natural, Wellness, and Gastronomy experiences are gaining importance over Sunbathing, Family Travel, Shopping, and Nightlife. This positions Croatia with a great opportunity to solidify its leadership in Nature and Active tourism products during the low season, compared to Mediterranean competitors. Additionally, there is an interesting opportunity to further develop Gastronomy and Culture-related activities, which were among the main travellers interests from October to March during the Autumn-Winter 2022-2023 season.

  Ivana Kolar, CEO at Julius Rose Consulting and Director of the Tourism 365 Conference, commented, "It is great to have confirmation that the Southeast Mediterranean region and Croatia are moving forward to achieve a more balanced tourism activity throughout the year. This has been the objective of this conference since its inception 7 years ago – bringing together governments and companies to align on vision and strategy".   Carlos Cendra, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mabrian added, "There are no doubts about the development possibilities of the region and Croatia for the non-summer season. The data shows excellent security perception and a well-balanced tourism offering to generate sustainable activity throughout the year, thereby boosting local economies".

 

• This summer travellers booked hotels at never-before-seen prices. How can travel sellers and B2B distributors respond? What role does tech play?
• Data from travel intelligence provider shows 2023 August prices for hotels were up by 64.03% in North America when compared to 2019.

  Since the pandemic, hotel room rates have been increasing drastically and this summer saw travellers paying prices that well exceeded 2019’s prices or any ever seen before. In fact, based on data from travel intelligence provider Mabrian, in August average hotel prices Vs 2019 were up by 16.75% in Europe, 48.5% in Asia and a massive 64.03% in North America.   Will this trend continue or slowly go away as ‘revenge travel’ fades? At what point do very high prices become counterproductive because guests feel ripped-off and won’t come back? And what role does technology and innovation play in responding to all of these challenges?   We spoke to experts from throughout the travel supply chain to get their take on whether the rates are here to stay, and how the industry should respond.   These higher-than-average hotel room rates will provide opportunities for tech-savvy travel sellers who can use innovative ways to help their travellers find the best deals, says Christian Sabbagh from Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) group Travelsoft – owner of distribution platforms such as Traffics, Orchestra and Travel Compositor: “Travel agencies and third parties can develop new strategies for helping customers find great deals on rooms while still offering competitive pricing options.  Additionally, as customer demand continues to grow suppliers can expand their services with innovative approaches like dynamic pricing models or integrated loyalty programs that reward users who book multiple stays at affiliated properties.”   Hotel revenue management experts BEONx warn that the higher-than-average prices are unlikely to last forever as consumers won’t put up with this even if they have the money.  Chief Marketing & Innovation offices Alex Barros comments that “how much is too much? It’s not really about the absolute price, although clearly all travellers have a budget, but instead more about the perception of value. If someone stayed in your property before for half the price, then this time they’re expecting things to be twice as good and if they’re not you damage your brand. Instead try and think of other ways to get more profit out of each customer than just the room charge. Could you be selling more F&B or providing them with a guided tour of the city? There’s always a way to make each guest more profitable and technology is nearly always part of that process.”   Meanwhile the global travel distribution provider Didatravel says that hotels should focus on differentiation.  Chief Marketing Office Gareth Matthews notes: “Although the demand for travel is high, hotels should focus on offering high quality, unique experiences to justify the higher price tags.  Travellers are paying more – but they are expecting more in return and, if a property does not deliver, they could be more likely to leave bad reviews or simply not return.  People want more for their money and want to see the higher prices reflected in the service they receive.”   As a final thought on the topic, some feel that many consumers still want to save money and are on a budget, so they won’t go away – that’s the sentiment of Digitrips, the owner of multi-product travel platform MisterFly. Managing Director Emilie Dumont warns hotel suppliers and third party distributors that: “Not all travellers can or will pay these higher prices; there is a large group of people that will appreciate discounts, incentives, loyalty schemes and special offers. If we want to avoid low hotel occupancy rates in the long term, the onus is on the travel industry as a whole to help agents and OTAs capitalise on the lowest possible rates for this market. Our newly launched Best Price Tracker, which enables travel sellers to benefit from more favourable rates if the price drops between the time of booking and the travel date, is a step in this direction.”

 

• Mabrian analyzes the evolution of traveller behavior and their motivations for travel since 2019
• ‘Experiential’ definition includes activities such as Wellness, Active & Lifestyle, Nature & Food and Cuisine.

  Mabrian Technologies, the leading company in Travel Intelligence and sentiment analysis, reveals the evolution of travellers’ behaviour and motivations from 2019 until now.   Since 2023 is definitively the back to normal year for tourism globally, Mabrian wanted to check if the travel behavioural changes detected after the pandemic will remain the same, or if actually they will switch back to traditional tourism activities.   To obtain this answer, Mabrian has analysed the spontaneous behaviour and preferences of travellers globally using Social Listening. This methodology is based on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (Natural Language Processing) techniques to analyse over 400 million tourism related interactions on Social Media during the observed period (first semester of 2019 to first semester of 2023).   The results of this study were presented during the webinar organised by AVIAREPS titled Changing traveller behaviour and trends, where besides from Mabrian’s study, Marriot International and Qatar Tourism presented their insights on this matter.   How tourists travel now   The major conclusion to take from the study is that experiential activities or motivations are taking over from conventional travel motivations. As a definition of ‘experiential’, the activities considered are related to Wellness, Active & Lifestyle, Nature & Food and Cuisine. On the other hand, conventional travel motivations have been defined as Arts and Culture, Sunbathing, Family, Shopping and Nightlife activities.   When dividing these motivations in two different blocks, the data shows how experiential activities has increased by 10 percentual points in the last 4 years ahead of conventional activities. By June 2023 the share of experiential motivations is already almost 50 / 50, which is highly significant, considering that in June 2019 only Arts & Culture and Sunbathing represented 41% of the travel motivations.   GRAPH: EXPERIENTIAL VS CONVENTIONAL   The activities that have picked up the most during these years reaching unprecedented levels of interest are Active & Lifestyle, Nature and Wellness. Regarding the two first ones, the data shows a clear inflection point from 2021, corroborating the effects of the pandemic in this type of motivations to travel. Wellbeing has also seen stable growth since 2019.   GRAPH: Global evolution of Tourist Interests: lines graph   On the other hand, conventional activities that have lost most of their importance are Arts & Culture and Sunbathing, which now represent only 34% of travel motivations, losing 7 percentual points since 2019.   GRAPH: Global evolution of Tourist Interests: bars   Carlos Cendra, Chief Marketing and Communication Officer at Mabrian comments: “the way we travel is constantly switching. From the traditional holidays of sunbathing in coastal destinations and culture and shopping in the cities, to disconnecting and discovering experiences where the connection with the environment and ourselves is key. There’s an obvious impact of the pandemic and the effect of being locked down that made us realise how important it is to enjoy the outdoors and feel well and healthy during our free time which has stuck in travellers’ motivations”.   Mabrian highlights that it is essential for destinations and tourism companies to detect new global trends among travellers in an agile manner, while working to offer a tourism product that is as diversified as possible and in line with new trends. High dependence on specific tourism products causes inefficiencies related to high dependence on certain source markets and high seasonality patterns. These factors are of great importance when it comes to promoting the sustainability of the destination.

 

• Mexico and Colombia lead the destinations with the highest growth in air capacity to travel to the Spanish capital in 2023

  Mabrian, a leading tourist intelligence company, has analyzed for the FITUR travel trade fair – which is being held this week in Madrid – the growth of the main source markets that will travel the most to Madrid this 2023.   The study, carried out using real-time data on air capacity, shows how Latin America has enormous growth in demand this year to visit Spain’s capital. In fact, Mexico and Colombia top the list of international destinations that have increased their air capacity to travel to Madrid. In the case of Mexico, the growth  of air capacity to Madrid is 32.72% higher when compared to 2019 and 42.05% highger compared to last. For its part, Colombia has increased air capacity by 23.35% compared to 2019 and 34.96% when compared to 2022.   The other countries that have increased their air capacity to Madrid are, in descending order: Portugal, the United States, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Switzerland. In the case of the United States, interest grew by 33.84% compared to last year (you can read more about the profile of Americans traveling to Spain here in this recent Mabrian analysis), but decreased when compared to 2019. In the case of Switzerland, interest decreased compared to 2019 and is recovering compared to last year.   Countries that will visit Madrid the most in 2023 by ranking     In addition to the data on growth in air capacity, the origin destinations that will visit Madrid the most, in order, will be: the Spainish domestic market to Madrid, followed by Italy, France, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Mexico, Colombia and Swizterland.   In this ranking there are changes compared to 2019, when the United Kingdom was in fourth place followed by Germany, and Mexico was in last place. Thus, in 2019, the destinations that visited Madrid the most were: Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Portugal, Switzerland, Colombia and Mexico.

  When it comes to climate change the travel industry needs to change its approach to ‘summer holidays’ if it doesn’t want to get caught out in the cold   ‘Winter is coming’ is the Stark family’s moto in Game of Thrones and in the travel industry this might be the case when it comes to ‘summer holidays’ due to climate change.   This year saw heat records broken in most of the main European summer tourism destinations, in some cases by quite significant margins, and climate experts are predicting that many places popular with tourists soon will be scorching hot every summer.   What does this mean for a tourism industry largely based around summer peak season visitors? Could winter become the new summer or will tourists start visiting new destinations where the climate is more bearable? We spoke with six experts to find out more.   Carlos Cendra, Sales and Marketing Director at travel intelligence provider Mabrian says: “If anyone thinks that hotter weather is good news for beach traditional beach destinations then they should think again. During this summer’s heat wave in Europe we saw a clear drop in visitor satisfaction levels during the hottest weeks. The weather is one of the most important contextual factors for the tourism industry. Hundreds of vacational destinations in the Mediterranean and North Africa have traditionally based their tourism development on  favorable weather conditions. Now this is changing, and faster than we thought. This is probably going to change global travel trends within the next years, so we’d better analyze the effects of this on the expectations and preferences of travellers.”   Matthew Chapman, CTO of travel booking technology provider Vibe comments: “Online travel agents and other digital points of sale for travel should consider adding a filter that lets people search by average temperatures for the dates they are looking. Likewise hotels, experiences providers, perhaps even airlines and airports should all start considering populating their content with information about air conditioning, shaded areas, and so on – and make that content searchable and filterable in the booking process. More and more people will be concerned by such details at the search and booking stage.”   Alex Barros,  Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer from Beonprice, the revenue management & total profitabilty platform  for  for the hospitality sector, adds: “From a revenue management perspective for hoteliers this is a potentially enormous change as pricing for leisure travel has all been defined by the same summer peak season approach since the beginning of mass tourism in the 1960s. More research will be needed around how temperatures impact consumer demand. What is the ideal temperature for maximum pricing? Is it impacted by temporary volatility in temperatures, or just long-term averages? All of this will of course impact how hoteliers approach building and opening new properties too, not just location but temperature-controlled buildings and communal areas.”   Fabián Gonzalez, Co-Founder of Forward_MAD, a luxury tourism event taking place in Madrid from 5^th to 7^th October, says: “Luxury hotels and resorts, and luxury experiences generally, are better positioned to adapt to the challenges of climate change as they have the  resources to invest in what is needed – better climate controlled buildings, air conditioned transfers, and so on – and have more demanding clients in terms of sustainability expectations, who are prepared to pay for this. Contrast that with mass-market tourism providers with low-margins where such costs would be the difference between profit and loss. Additionally a shift towards tourists spreading their holidays out throughout the whole year, adapting to ‘wintering’ rather than ‘summering’, could suit many boutique and smaller luxury hotels with only a limited number of rooms – allowing them to fill them up in the normally quieter months. Not least as high spending travellers normally are more flexible in terms of vacation dates anyway.”    Bruno Martins, Senior Product Manager from the global hospitality technology provider Shiji Group comments: “Hotels and resorts in hotter locations will have to re-think their outdoor relaxation areas, perhaps putting an end to ‘outside’ pools or at the very least placing some kind of cover over the top – and making them more nighttime friendly too, including lifeguard services, or perhaps even charging for peak hours. Equally the spa centres should be rethought, positioning them more as a place to go and cool down – with less saunas and more ice baths. Golf courses are a popular draw for hot locations and they too will be impacted, quite heavily in fact as you can’t cover a whole golf course with screens and more watering will be required at a time when water becomes more scarce. Again nighttime, or at least early morning, tee-offs will be in greater demand. Technology is going to be the golden-thread throughout all of these changes, whether that be via apps that allow guests to schedule better those precious cool moments, pricing software that maximizes revenues based on temperature, or electronic wrist bands that allow guests access (or not!) to certain locations at certain times based on demand. Basically hotels can already start optimizing revenue for the activities based on time of day, where demand will increase and improve revenue management of rates.”   Janis Dzenis, Director of PR for the recently launched flight price comparison website WayAway also says: “For many US travellers going to Europe, summer is still all about the Mediterranean region and that might take a long while to change no matter how hot it becomes. Especially keeping in mind that for many US visitors to Europe this is a one-off, special trip – they aren’t basing their choice on previous experiences, but on what they saw in a movie or a friend told them. Any reality will take time to filter through. However in the short term all this recent hot weather around the world is driving eco-consciousness amongst travellers. So they´ll want to know what destinations and hotels are doing to fight this and those that don’t have a convincing answer will gradually lose out. This will also drive more demand for travellers to offset their carbon footprint too and this is a service we offer to our WayAway Plus subscribers, one that is proving very popular.”

 

• Incorporation of four people to enhance the company’s presence in different regions to offer solutions based on tourism intelligence.
• The team has grown by 20% since 2021, now forming a total of 27 people.
• Mabrian now has a multicultural team with 11 nationalities speaking 10 languages.

  Mabrian, the leading company in big data and tourism intelligence, has reinforced its business development team in recent months to accelerate its expansion in priority areas for the company such as Italy, France, Portugal, Greece, the Balkans, the Middle East and Latin America.   Mary Menchón, Chris Ramaciotti, Parisa Bakhtiari and Catalina Taltavull have joined the commercial team to bring tourism intelligence closer to the many different destinations and markets that want to promote better decision-making based on data and real-time information on trends, tourist satisfaction rates and other relevant indicators for them.   All of them have an international profile with experience in the tourism sector both in the field of tourism bodies and the hotel sector. The new joiners will be responsible for specific regions with a focus on interacting directly with the sector in each of their respective countries or regions to offer solutions based on tourism intelligence.   Mabrian’s current workforce has grown 20% in the last year and is more multicultural than ever. In total, it now has 27 people of 11 different nationalities, speaking 10 languages, distributed in 6 departments. The team is located between the offices in Menorca and Barcelona along with a current growing commitment to a hybrid work model, where face-to-face work coexists with remote work.   Santi Camps, Founder and CEO of Mabrian, celebrating that the team continues to grow to help Mabrian expand to more regions, reaching a total of 16 countries where the company currently has a presence, comments: “We want to officially welcome our new colleagues, who are now already part of the Mabrian family. The objective for all of us is clear: turn data and information into answers for our partners, enabling smarter decisions, whilst increasing the efficiency and sustainability of the sector”.  

• Chris Ramaciotti is the new Business Development Manager for Northern Europe. He has an international MBA and extensive experience in the luxury hotel sector. For Chris, “the technology developed by Mabrian is a central element when it comes to meeting the needs of a traveler since we accompany destinations and companies so that they can better understand their behavior and adapt their strategies”.
• While Parisa Bakhtiari is the new Business Development Manager for the Asia, the Middle East and Africa areas. A telecommunications engineer with a background in tourism, she has spent many years of her career focused on the travel industry. “I am passionate about exploring data in tourism, and with this passion I am dedicated to facilitating the incorporation of tourism intelligence in tourism policies and strategies, whilst helping the sector to take advantage of the opportunities of big data.”
• Mary Menchón is Mabrian’s Business Development Manager for Spain, Portugal and LATAM. Trained in tourism andcommunication, her work experience has focused on the tourism sector from different perspectives. “At Mabrian, a company that I have known since 2018, I know how to provide the vision of working and implementing the use of big data for DMO’s from scratch, since I myself experienced that process. For me, being able to help tourist destinations implement this tool and being able to continue contributing my part for the recovery of tourism is my greatest motivation”.
• And Catalina Taltavull is Mabrian’s new global public procurement coordinator. She has a mixed profile between aeronautical engineering, business development and extensive experience in the tourism and accommodation sector. Her functions at Mabrian are summed up in her own words: “We are facing the birth of a new service sector for tourism managers: Tourism Intelligence. The highly unstable context that the sector is facing makes administrations increasingly see the need to professionalize and have information to make better decisions. At Mabrian what we have is a solution developed and approved with more than five years of experience in the market, ready to provide an agile solution to the sector.”

  Mabrian has conducted a study of average hotel prices by room type for all the main Mediterranean destinations: overall prices are up on 2019, but not everywhere – and Greece is the big surprise, with increases up to 110% in five star rooms.   Carlos Cendra, Sales & Marketing Director at Mabrian comments:    “With few exceptions all the main Mediterranean destinations are seeing modest increases on average prices from 2019 across three, four and five star hotels.   “France is the main exception, with a 12% and 11.3% drop in prices for three and four star hotels respectively – but it’s worth pointing out that it is not all bad news, as its five star hotels are still the most expensive in the region at €419 per night (and up by 13.2% compared to 2019).   “Meanwhile Egypt’s prices are up strongly across all three categories, at 25%, 40.9% and 48.3%.  But Greece is the real star here, with four and five star hotels seeing a 62.7% and a 110% increase respectively.”  

 

• Data shows that the region is still on the way to recovering pre-pandemic values but also shows significant changes in terms of origin markets capacity and hotel prices

  Mabrian Technologies, a leading tourism intelligence company, has analyzed  data for the main destinations in the Middle East in view of its participation in the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) fair that is being held this week in Dubai.   To this end Mabrian has looked at connectivity data for the top nine destinations in the Middle East (Cairo, Tel Aviv, Jeddah, Medina, Riyadh, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Doha) and the main European destinations that have traditionally been markets of origin for these Middle Eastern cities (Spain, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Austria, Italy, Greece and Switzerland).   The results show that the main destinations in the Middle East are having a challenging time recovering their connectivity volumes from  prior to the pandemic. Of the nine destinations analyzed, only two are at 2019 levels or have improved their connectivity: Cairo and Riyadh. Meanwhile Medina is the city that is furthest from its 2019 figures.     Right now Dubai, Doha, Jeddah and Riyadh are the best connected cities in the Middle East, adding between the four more than 38 million incoming places for the next three months – or 70% of all places scheduled for the nine cities analyzed (54.4 million places).   For its part, the main European markets of origin for destinations in the Middle East are the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy. Among the European markets, only Austria shows better connectivity with the Middle East than in 2019 and both the United Kingdom and Germany are still 20% below 2019 figures.   Regarding accommodation, the analysis of the average prices of 1,141 hotels of all categories in these cities for the next month shows a relevant price increase. Prices have risenon average more than 20%, reaching increases of 80% in some specific cases. The cities with the most expensive accommodation are Medina, Dubai and Tel Aviv, where the average prices per night are between  €136 and €168.     Carlos Cendra, Sales & Marketing Director of Mabrian, comments "despite the fact that this study reveals that in the Middle East the rate of recovery is not the same as in other regions, the short-term prospects are good if the current dynamic continues – as we are seeing and commenting during this Arabian Travel Market. It must be taken into account that some of the important markets for this region, such as China, have not yet recovered their pre-pandemic demand.”

 

• Mabrian, in a new study based on tourism data and intelligence, compares the aviation carbon footprint of the main Mediterranean destinations for  2019 with 2022 
• CO2 emissions have been calculated – in total and per passenger – for incoming air connectivity into all airports in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece, including all  origins 
• The company presents its new carbon footprint indicator, which is added to its platform of tourism sustainability indices for destinations 

  Mabrian Technologies, a leading tourism data and intelligence company, has calculated, compared and analyzed the carbon footprint of vistors arriving by air for the main Mediterranean destinations for the years of 2019 and 2022. To do this, the emissions of CO2 due to incoming air connectivity have been calculated in countries such as Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece. The data for each country includes flights from any origin anywhere in the world to any airport within that country, and both the average carbon footprint per passenger as well as the total emissions emitted are calculated.   This study is published at the Sustainable Destinations Summit organized this week by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in Mallorca, where Mabrian will participate as a speaker.  During the event Mabrian will launch this new indicator of tourist sustainability that will be used from now on to calculate the global tourism sustainability impact of destinations. This new indicator joins the other tourism sustainability indices that Mabrian has been calculating and analyzing for destinations since launching last year.   For this study published today, the new indicator has analyzed the carbon footprint that will be generated by the arrival of visitors by air to the five most important holiday tourist destinations in Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece) between January and October 2022 – and is compared with the same period in 2019. For this calculation, the volume of scheduled incoming seats in this period for all destination airports in these countries is used as a criterion, calculating emissions with an estimate of occupied seats and the carbon footprint generated by the flights depending on the routes and the type of aircraft.   The conclusions reached after the analysis of these tourist data are:   

• In total, the destinations studied will emit between January and October this year 46.5 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere due to air connectivity. This represents a reduction of 19% compared to the same period in 2019.
• However, the reduction in incoming air seats for these destinations between January and October is only 7.23% compared to 2019 – which shows an improvement in CO2 efficiency.
• Meanwhile the average carbon footprint per passenger is reduced by 5% compared to 2019, going from an average of 120 kg/passenger to 114 kg/passenger.
• The reduction in intercontinental travel and the renewal of fleets with more fuel efficient models by airlines are favoring this positive evolution.

  By country, the results are as follows:   

• Spain is the destination that emits the most carbon footprint as it is the country that will receive the most visitors. However, its average carbon footprint per visitor is lower than that of France or Portugal.
• Greece is the country that shows the best efficiency in average CO2 per passenger received during 2022 with 97.72 kg/passenger, 14% below the average of the rest of the destinations. This is despite being the only destination that will increase its total emissions during 2022, since it also expects to receive more visitors: the total tonnes of CO2 emitted will increase by 4.6%.
• Italy and Portugal are the destinations that most manage to reduce their carbon footprint per passenger, reducing 1.8% and 9% respectively.
• France is the only one of the five countries analyzed that will increase emissions per passenger during 2022 compared to 2019, by 2.9%. However, it has the second highest reduction in total emissions, by 24%. This is only behind Italy, which reduces emissions by 28% compared to 2019.

  Carlos Cendra, Marketing & Sales Director at Mabrian Technologies, states that: "this indicator is a great tool to measure the environmental impact of the arrival of visitors to a destination by air and  it will allow destination managers to act in collaboration with the airlines. The dependence on remote markets, the occupation levels of flights and the type of aircraft offered by the companies are all relevant aspects to take into account in order to reduce the impact of the carbon footprint of a destination."  “As we will propose at the Sustainable Destinations Summit organized by the UNWTO and the Consell Insular de Mallorca, destinations must take the initiative and lead the change in model, but for this they need measurement tools such as those that we can offer them through our tourist intelligence and big data analysis.”    To speak with Mabrian contact Roman Townsend on rtownsend@belverapartners.com  

 

• Mabrian study detects that the impact of the war has affected trends in supply and demand for accommodation during Easter
• The data focuses on the evolution of flight search demand from the United Kingdom, one of the main European source markets, to Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Greece – plus the evolution of average hotel prices
• Portugal is the destination that seems to benefit the most from a shift in demand from the United Kingdom

  Mabrian Technologies, a tourism intelligence platform, has compiled data on tourism trends for the Easter period, noting the effect that Russia's war in Ukraine has had on supply and demand trends. This data suggests that the conflict and instability in Eastern Europe have led to an increased demand to spend Easter Week in countries such as Spain and Portugal.   The data focuses on the evolution of demand from the United Kingdom, one of the main outbound European markets. It looks at data for searches made between February 11 and March 8 of this year for flights from the UK to Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Greece to travel between April 11 and May 1.   This evolution of flight searches (based on daily averages) from the United Kingdom was then broken down into data from the 13 days before the invasion (from February 11 to 23) and the 13 days after (from February 24 to March 8). The results are:  

• Following the outbreak, flight searches and spontaneous demand from the United Kingdom grew by 13.2% for Portugal and 12.7% for Spain, while it fell -10.45% for Turkey and -8.15% for Greece.
• Searches for flights from the UK to these four destinations fell sharply overall in the days after the war broke out by between 30% and 40%. However, search volumes for Spain and Portugal recovered within 5-6 days, while Turkey and Greece had not recovered volumes 13 days later.

  Regarding hotel price data, the prices for a standard room for one night were compared for stays between April 11 and May 1, 2022 with 2019 (when Easter was from May 15 to 28 April). The results were the following:    

• The average prices of accommodation in Spain and Portugal grew for Easter in all categories.
• Portugal is the country where prices rise the most with +15% in 3-star hotels, +6% in 4-star hotels and +17% in 5-star hotels. Spain follows with +14%, +4% and +9% respectively.
• In Turkey, the average prices of 3- and 4-star hotels fell, -4% and -3% respectively. These categories are those most frequented by Russian clientele. However, 5-star hotels are up 27%.
• In Greece, the average price of 3-star hotels fell by 9%, while 4- and 5-star hotels rose by 8% and 20%, respectively.
• In general, in Spain average hotel prices are more than 20% above the average of the destinations analyzed and 15% above the average prices of Portugal, its immediate competitor in terms of prices.
• Portugal is the destination that seems to feel the most the effect of a shift in tourist demand from the United Kingdom to Western European destinations, since it is the one that has grown the most in hotel searches and prices.

  Carlos Cendra, director of Marketing and Sales at Mabrian, states that “knowing how the Russian conflict has affected the Easter period in the short term allows the rest of the countries and tourist destinations to know what the trend will be if the conflict continues. These collected data are an example of the tourist intelligence that we share with our clients with the aim of accompanying them in better decision-making, based on real information to adjust their next marketing actions. In this case, that means that Spain and Portugal can confidently focus on continuing to invest to attract European travelers for the high demand period of Easter”.

  Mabrian Technologies highlights in a graph the countries that would be most affected in tourism terms by a prolonged Russian conflict with Ukrainian   Mabrian Technologies, a tourism intelligence platform, has developed a map showing the top 20 countries that depend most on Russian tourism, from the point of view of air connectivity.   These countries would see their tourism sector affected in the coming months if the crisis between Russian and Ukraine lengthens, given that an effect is expected in all of Europe.   This data have been extracted based on air capacity and the number of seats on scheduled flights from Russia for the next six months (staring February 24).   As the graph shows, the country with the most scheduled flights and seats from Russia is Turkey, with nearly 2 million scheduled tickets for the next six months. It is followed by Ukraine, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates and Tajikistan. The top 10 destinations dependent on Russian travelers also includes countries such as Germany, Greece, Egypt and Cyprus, whilst Spain is in aat 18th place.   "A new instability puts Europe's tourism recovery at risk when it seemed that we had overcome the crisis caused by Covid19. This is just another example that the only constant is instability and that destinations and tourism companies must have up-to-date information to analyze and act quickly to threats and opportunities” says Carlos Cendra, Director of Sales and Marketing at Mabrian.    “Turkey and Greece are two important tourist destinations in southern Europe and, at the same time, are among the most dependent on the Russian market. It is possible that these, in the coming weeks, will have to increase their efforts to attract tourists from other markets, demonstrate greater competition and lower prices to counteract a possible decrease in tourism from Russia.”