Skift Travel Health Index

2023 marked a significant milestone when global travel recovered and exceeded expectations, setting new benchmarks. As we move away from the COVID era, in 2024, the Skift Travel Health Index is shifting its focus to year-on-year (YoY) indexing instead of continuing to compare against 2019 levels.

As we enter 2024, the travel industry is poised for strong growth, building on the recovery momentum of 2023. The Skift Travel Health Index now benchmarks performance year-on-year, moving away from the 2019 benchmark. In January 2024, the index stands at 114, a 14-point increase from January 2023, signaling continued resilience and expansion in the industry.

The Skift Travel Health Index stood at 102 in December 2023, concluding 2023 as a triumphant year for the travel industry. 2024 signals a promising comeback as the industry moves past the COVID era, navigating the “new normal,” strengthening, and settling into a stable growth trajectory.

The global Travel Health Index rose to 105, continuing the trend of surpassing pre-pandemic levels and setting a new benchmark. Latin America, propelled by the Taylor Swift Eras Tour led the score, soaring to an all-time high regional index of 117 in November 2023.

Global travel softened due to seasonality of demand in October 2023, the Skift Travel Health Index dipping to 103. Europe was impacted the most due to reduced pent-up demand and economic concerns. Despite China's Golden Week holiday, travel recovery in the country remained sluggish.

The Skift Travel Health Index stands at 106 this month, achieving a new record high. However, there is a disparity in the performance of several countries in the Asia Pacific, suggesting that efforts to attract Chinese travelers to nations dependent on inbound tourism may be progressing at a slower pace than anticipated.

Hong Kong is back in business. Travel performance boomed in August 2023, but talk of full recovery is still premature, as 2019 wasn't a particularly good year with widespread protests impacting travel demand in the country.

Global travel's month-on-month performance decline in July 2023 due to seasonality of demand, mirrors the downward trend from June to July last year. Hong Kong, the only country to witness an index uptick this month, has geared up for a steady rebound as travel volumes return.

The Skift Travel Health Index shows that all regions have recovered, but Europe's travel revival appears to be rather slow. With 17 out of 22 countries having fully recovered and Europe being a popular summer hotspot, the global travel industry has geared up for a bright summer season.

The Skift Travel Health Index continues to indicate global travel recovery in May 2023. With 14 out of 22 countries having fully recovered and some overtaking pre-pandemic travel performance, we anticipate the index to soon significantly surpass 2019 levels if the present travel trends continue.

For the first time since January 2020, the Skift Travel Health Index has seen its global score move beyond 100, indicating how global tourism is now performing better than it did before the pandemic. Every region included in our index showcased growth over the last month.

India has all the cards to become the next mega source market for international travel, although major barriers still need to be overcome. The country has been performing extremely well in our Skift Travel Health Index.