Skyscanner reveals regional 2024 travel outlook

March 2024 – Global travel leader Skyscanner, today released its latest Horizons report, highlighting insights into booking windows, destination choices, and trending destinations across the APAC regions. The analysis is based on Skyscanner’s proprietary forward-looking Travel Insight data, comparing traveller behaviour and search trends year-on-year. Full report is available here.

Booking windows reflect confidence to plan ahead

 Across the board, travellers are planning further ahead compared to the previous year, marking a return to traditional seasonality in 2024.

APAC: Amongst APAC travellers there is a greater distribution of booking windows compared to other regions but an overall increase in bookings over 30 days (including a 2% jump in the 90+ day segment). Booking windows of two months or more now represent over a third of demand in this region.

Destination choices highlight regional preferences

APAC: APAC travellers are turning their focus towards intra-regional destinations, with a notable decrease in trips to Europe compared to last year. Seat capacity is returning to the region and many travellers are indicating a desire to swap long-haul trips with short or medium ones, or even domestic trips with an eye on their budget to help keep costs down.

Trending destinations

 Destinations with the biggest year-on-year increases in search volumes reflect a mix of wanting to explore new places, as well as those with new route connections.

APAC: New Delhi, India and Shanghai, China are experiencing the biggest growth amongst APAC travellers, while Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Dubrovnik, Croatia; and Victoria, Canada are also trending. Pangkalan Bun in Borneo, Indonesia is the only trending destination with an increase in average trip length.

Zeynep Mutlu Bigalı, Head of Destination Partnerships: “Our latest Horizon insights reveal a travel landscape that is both familiar and evolving. While traditional seasonality is returning and popular destinations remain in demand, travellers are also seeking value and exploring options closer-to-home. Across Skyscanner’s platforms we have seen incredible demand at the start of the year, and we expect this to continue as we head into the summer, especially in regions such as North Asia.”

At the start of 2024, Skyscanner saw record travel demand, outperforming the global flights market and was the fastest growing metasearch in 2023*.

Skyscanner continues to be a strategic partner for some of the biggest brands, airlines and DMOs in the world; working with companies from across the travel ecosystem including DMOs like Visit California to promote destinations, powering the next generation of AI travel tools such as Bing Chat and Layla, as well as helping airlines promote their unique offers via NDC and launch new routes based on data intelligence.