The findings show, on a year-on-year comparison, trips out of Europe have increased by 4%. Economic uncertainty in many European countries has not affected travel spending, which has risen by 2%.

According to UNTWO, from January to August 2011 international trips to Europe rose to 671 million, an increase of 4.5%. The forecast for next year is positive too.

In September 2011 travellers from 13 European countries were asked whether and how often they intended to travel next year. Answer: 43% said they would be travelling as often in 2012 as this year, 27% aimed to travel more, 20% said they would be travelling less than in 2011.

Overall IPK’s “European Travel Confidence Index” lies at 103 points for 2012, indicating 2%-3% growth next year. This would represent solid growth and would mean a new all-time high number of trips, ahead of the previous record year of 2008.

Martin Buck, director of the Competence Center Travel and Logistics at Messe Berlin (pictured right), said that despite the difficulties experienced by various eurozone countries Europe’s travel industry has to date made it safely through 2011. I

“In particular, stable prices and easy online booking procedures have ensured that Europe continues to attract international travellers and also remains the world’s leading source market.”

Other key findings:

• Swiss keen travellers: The number of trips made by the Swiss grew by 9%. They were followed by Sweden (7%) and Belgium (6%). The Germans were more restrained as the number of trips they took in 2011 rose by only 1%.

• Short haul trips popular: Compared with 2010 short-haul trips grew by 4% and made up 90% of trips overall. About 3% decided to travel long distance. The number of short trips, one to three overnights, rose by 10% while figures for longer stays stagnated.

• Travel within Europe:  Respondents from the 13 European nations polled preferred trips to northern, central and south-western European regions. Due to the political revolutions in countries, such as Tunisia and Egypt, many tourists avoided North Africa, which suffered losses of 15%. Travel to the Asia Pacific region stagnated too, due to a drop in trips to Japan following the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The winners were North and South America, which together registered a 6% increase in tourism.

• City breaks popular: Among European travellers major cities were popular again this year. City breaks were among the most popular form of travel, rising by 10%, followed by round trips (8%) and beach holidays (6%). By contrast, trips to rural regions and ski holidays fell by 7% and 5% respectively.

• Preference for low cost flights: European travellers clearly like to save money getting to their destination as low cost flights rose by 10%, while traditional air travel suffered a 4% drop.

• Mobile booking not in vogue:  Bookings by smartphones have made no significant impact to date. Only 3% of European travellers said they used mobile devices to make their travel reservations, with the remaining 97% booking their trips via a PC or laptop. For accommodation booking, online reservations accounted for 63%, overtaking bookings by telephone or in person (37%).

Details of European travel trends will be presented by the ITB World Travel Trends Report, which will be published in early December at the ITB Berlin website.