Wouter Geerts

We attempt to tell you everything you'd want to know about the Airbnb - Vrbo rivalry in 20 charts... Sadly we failed, and give you 23 charts instead. As a bonus we sprinkle in some Booking.com analysis too, data permitting.

Travel is back! While 2022 was all about bumper performances in some countries and sectors, and lagging performances in others, we can truly say that 2023 is the year that travel fully recovered. But we do need to be clear-eyed about persisting and upcoming challenges. This report hands you everything you need to know in one 250+ slide deck.

We've covered the environmental performance of hotel companies before, but that research was due an update. Much has happened in the world, and - probably unrelated - hotel companies have become better at setting emission reduction targets and reporting of current performance. Let's continue that trend.

Skift Research is cautiously optimistic about travel's continued recovery in 2023, despite a growing likelihood of a recession in many countries. Travel is still underindexed compared to the broader economy, and the reopening of Chinese borders provides a strong boost.

The new year will give no rest to a weary travel industry. After years of work to dig out of the hole the pandemic put us in, travel in 2023 may find that the hardest part still lies ahead. The groundwork for growth is in place but achieving success will be no simple task.

Economic worries might be catching up with the travel industry, but just in time China is starting to show signs of life.

The final push to full travel industry recovery seems more stubborn than initially thought. Continuing uncertainties and headwinds suppressed growth in October, with the Skift Travel Health Index sitting around the 85% mark since June with little movement.

High season... what high season? In September, 57% of Americans traveled, 10 percentage points higher than the same time last year. The normal decline in trip participation after the summer months did not occur, highlighting how the vacation season is being stretched as demand - and prices - remain high.

Newly released data is highlighting the shift away from Asia as the epicenter of travel, moving towards the Middle East and Europe. With China looking at its zero-Covid policy as the long-term solution to beating the pandemic, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for the pendulum to swing back.

So much has happened in the the travel industry in recent years. This new report by Skift Research puts perspective on those dizzying changes by providing definitive and data-driven insight into the current state of the travel industry, and the trends that will shape the future.

While not fully recovered, travel is taking on recognizable and predictable patterns in most regions. Asia Pacific is the exception, where there are still major fluctuations in travel performance with every new announcement of loosening and tightening of pandemic-related restrictions.

Asia Pacific still has the largest gap to pre-pandemic travel levels, but our back-of-the-envelope analysis shows that a return of Chinese travelers would pull many Asian countries back in the black. Now we just need to wait for the Chinese borders to reopen...