As Europe wins tourists, London loses its appeal

ForwardKeys, which monitors travel patterns by analyzing 14 million booking transactions a day and crunching more daily traveler data than anyone else, has just released data, which shows that London

ForwardKeys, which monitors travel patterns by analyzing 14 million booking transactions a day and crunching more daily traveler data than anyone else, has just released data, which shows that London is losing its tourism appeal, when it comes to attracting international tourists. In an analysis of long-haul travel to major European cities this year, which showed overall growth of 3.9%, London is 3.7% down. Looking at forward bookings (or “on-the-book” data) for the coming three months covering May-August, major European cities are 3.7% up, whereas London is 1.8% behind where it was at the same time last year.

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Olivier Jager, Co-Founder & CEO, ForwardKeys, commented: โ€œThese numbers must be a worry for London as it would expect to be the highlight of a long haul trip to Europe and when Europe grows London should grow with it, not fall behind. When we look in more detail at the data, three important source markets, the USA, Australia and China are all down by ~4%.โ€

Nevertheless, London maintains its leading position in volume terms, with a huge, 14% market share. Paris is also looking at a decline in forward bookings, which is due to a slow-down in business travel, as the leisure segment is still performing fairly well. The cities of Amsterdam and Milan are the winners among the Top 10 in Europe, with double-digit growth in both year-to-date arrivals and forward bookings.

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Olivier Jager continued: โ€œThe disproportionately good performance of Amsterdam is most noticeable in leisure-related categories, such as group bookings, while Milan is attracting business and leisure tourists due to improved air connectivity and the upcoming World Expo, which is drawing particularly strong interest from China, with bookings 50% up on last yearโ€.

Munich, up 15.3% in the first third of the year, has benefitted from an Asian rise, with its growth driven by visitors from China, India, Japan and Taiwan. Barcelona, up 12.0% over the same period, is winning a worldwide popularity contest in that it has picked up tourism business from all over the world. Istanbul is 10.1% ahead in terms of forward bookings thanks to improved air connectivity and growth in Chinese and Taiwanese visitors following recent introduction of an easy to obtain e-visa.

Looking at the forward bookings for Europe more generally (May-August 2015), there is strong demand from both mature and emerging markets. North America shows stable growth of 4% for summer travel, accounting for a 40.4% market share. Inbound travel from South America, Africa and Oceania is all slightly down, by 1.0%, 1.3% and 0.5% respectively.

Olivier Jager concluded: โ€œWhile international tourists are getting better value for their money in Europe this summer thanks to the decline of the Euro, the strong demand from the Middle East (6.2% market share; 8% growth) and Asian regions (20.8% market share; 20.2% growth) also reflects the growing affluence of those origin markets and an increasing thirst for travel.โ€

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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