WITH 2023 just around the corner, brands in the travel space are packaging data from the last twelve months to give us a glimpse into collective travel habits. It’s an interesting exercise, particularly this year, that quantifies how consumer behaviour has changed after the pandemic, but also how much it has stayed the same.
WiT is in the midst of publishing our own year-in reviews in the form of rapid-fire interviews. You can check them out here, here, and here.
Tripadvisor has labeled 2022 as the year of the “great travel reboot”. Unsurprisingly, recent Tripadvisor research found that ‘Relax and Rejuvenate’ was the main trip purpose for 50% of travellers globally. The company also hit a milestone number of searches this year, further emphasising the reality of “revenge travel”. The platform reached over a billion contributions this year.
The most popular search terms on Tripadvisor’s platform were:
- Beach, 4.8 million times
- Resort, 3.2 million times
- Spa, 1.7 million times
However, we think the most interesting parts of Tripadvisor’s “Unpacked” report are the numbers next to some pretty adventurous activities.
- Shark-diving: 1,636 experiences booked
- Ziplining: 16,563 tours booked
- Ghost and vampire tours: 47,015 tickets sold
Yes, you read that last one right. Apparently many travellers are okay bumping into the supernatural, but ziplining is out of the question. And sharks are completely off limits. We’ll chalk these adrenaline-craving decisions up to being stuck at home for over two years.
What most travellers were really looking for, though, were big cities around the world. The platform saw 6.5 million new travel itineraries created this year, indicating robust growth in the travel and hospitality scene.
There were 11 million traveller searches for Bangkok, Thailand, which ties in nicely with the significant demand for beaches, as mentioned earlier. 43 million searches were for London, England and a hefty 20 million looked up Las Vegas, USA.
On the opposite end of the spectrum were travellers looking for unique, one-of-a-kind experiences. These were usually small-group activities like a reindeer sleigh ride in Finland or a private tour to the Giza Pyramids.
The latter illustrates the rise in more authentic travel experiences – the desire to find something new and unique, albeit smaller and more intimate, away from the mainstream trends.
As more brands release their findings online to celebrate the year they’ve had in terms of travel recovery, it’s worth noting that while many key players were confident that travel would return, others were still wary a year ago that we’d be going anywhere at all this year. 2022 wasn’t smooth sailing all the way, but it’s great to see major platforms enjoying unprecedented traffic, especially after so much uncertainty.
