Skift Research Global Travel Outlook 2025

Report Overview

Welcome to Skift Research's 2025 Travel Outlook. Inside you will discover consumer trends, regional travel performance, and revenue growth estimates for online travel, hotels, airlines, cruise, and short-term rentals.

If 2023 was the year of revenge travel, and 2024 of normalization, what will 2025 bring? Likely a slow and steady baseline of growth amid divergence, challenges, and change. Our research points to high single-digit revenue growth for the travel industry in 2025. In a world of muted global growth, that still makes travel a “GDP-plus,” high-growth industry.

New to the outlook this year is a five-country survey on upcoming travel trends. We asked travelers in the U.S., UK, Germany, India, and China what is on their mind, and penciled into their budgets, for the travel year to come. This proprietary dataset makes clear that the shift to spending on experiences over things remains strong. Travel is the discretionary purchase that people are most excited to splurge on. It outranks dining, electronics, jewelry, and more.

In a more competitive travel landscape, online travel is back in the driver’s seat as the fastest-growing major sector. Hotels and airlines continue to stabilize, while short-term rentals adapt to a post-pandemic era. In addition to revenue estimates, we also highlight key trends and insights that will drive the performance of these travel sectors in 2025 and beyond.

What You'll Learn From This Report

• Global travel outlook consumer survey, 2025 trends

• Online travel revenue and gross bookings forecast, 2024–26

• Hotel revenue forecast, 2024–26

• Short-term rental revenue forecast, 2024–26

• Airline passenger revenue forecast, 2024–25

• Global travel industry performance in 2024