The European Travel Commission (ETC) has just published its third quarterly report on European Tourism in 2012 - Trends & Prospects. The full report can be downloaded from ETC’s corporate website by clicking here.
The following gives a brief overview of the report for the third quarter of 2012.
- European travel proves resilient in the face of the weak and uncertain global economic environment, with growth in visits reported for most destinations including from both long-haul and European markets.
- Air transport and accommodation data as well as available arrivals data indicate a slow growth as the year progressed. This is partly explained by cost-saving behaviours to face the uncertain economic environment. Hotel demand also appears to be weaker than total tourism demand indicating a rise in demand for other forms of accommodation.
- Among European airlines, long-haul air traffic demand has shown the greatest slowdown while intra-European demand remains stout.
- The strongest growth in European tourism demand is concentrated in smaller, emerging Eastern destinations which tend to involve lower costs than some of the more developed Western destination markets.
- Prices, and therefore revenue and profits, remain under pressure. Hotel average daily rates (ADR) in most markets are still lower than pre-recession peaks, especially once wider inflation is taken into account.
- The economic outlook remains uncertain although the near-term risk of Eurozone break-up appears to have faded.
- TourMIS data on arrivals from key source markets echo the trends seen in the industry data. Intra-European travel is benefitting from a shift away from more expensive, long-haul travel. Japanese arrivals continue to rebound following last year’s natural and nuclear disasters in Japan.
The full report can be downloaded from ETC’s corporate website.