Wouter Geerts

China is finally starting to recover, after months of decline amid renewed lockdowns. The overall Index dropped for the first time in 2022 though, as the mess at airports and airlines is catching up with the industry.

Lines between hotels, short-term rentals and other accommodation types are blurring, but we see little merging in the business-to-business tech spaces that support these sectors. This will change, but there are some major barriers to overcome first.

The "100 Club" now consists of seven members - seven countries where the travel industry performs at par or above 2019 levels. More will follow in the coming months.

The latest data and insights from our partners shows that the travel industry is continuing to return to 'traditional' levels of demand, and traveler behavior is looking increasingly like it did before the pandemic.

While the travel industry was on its knees, travel loyalty programs continued to grow. But the pandemic has changed the travel industry, and loyalty programs need to follow suit.

Poor travel performances in Russia and China, which did not come as a surprise, suppress an otherwise strong continuation of travel’s recovery in March 2022.

The travel industry registered one of its strongest months of recovery since the inception of our Index, with performance up across all sectors and almost all countries. The war in Ukraine, however, is casting a long shadow over travel's performance moving into March.

Our improved Travel Health Index shows that pricing rules across all travel sectors. Inflated rates pulled up overall performance, but Omicron impacted new bookings coming in during January.

As we close the books on 2021, the Skift Recovery Index stands at 64 points. This indicates that demand for travel, which we gather from a range of data indicators…

Sophisticated revenue management systems will undoubtedly become more commonplace in the hotel industry, but today still only a small minority of hotels use them. There is a lot of room left for growth, innovation, and disruption.

With 2022 on the horizon, the travel recovery has begun in earnest. Brands are competing to win returning consumers but may find that old habits and preferences have evolved.

This is the most complete vendor landscape and market sizing for the hotel property management system sector. With annual revenues of $4.5 billion, this is the largest hotel tech category, but it is also extremely fragmented. There is a lot to fight for.