FOXTROTS*

 

Travel Industry Data News, June 15-19.

From http://www.travelbusinessanalyst.com

 

Travel business updates

19 June 2020

[] ARC* reports weekly percentage falls in May for US-based travel agencies:

  (Key: 1. Tickets sold, US$. 2. Tickets sold, number. 3. Corporate tickets sold. 4. Online tickets sold. 5. Leisure/Other tickets sold.)

-YTD. 1. -50.90%. 2. -85.4%. 3. -90.3%. 4. -63.5%. 5. -78.4%.

In 7-day periods through:

-June 14. 1. -75.2%. 2. -56.32%. 3. -54.79%. 4. -48.16%. 5. -51.07%.

-June 7. 1. -81.1%. 2. -88.5%. 3. -92.0%. 4. -73.2%. 5. -82.6%.

-May 31. 1. -83.7%. 2. -89.9%. 3. -92.9%. 4. -77.4%. 5. -84.7%.

-May 24. 1. -85.2%. 2. -91.1%. 3. -93.3%. 4. -79.0%. 5. -86.4%.

-May 17. 1. -87.4%. 2. -92.6%. 3. -94.3%. 4. -82.4%. 5. -87.9%.

*Notes:

-ARC = Airlines Reporting Corporation, handling financial settlements between US-based travel agencies and airlines.

-A full report on this topic in our W.S.Y.K:What-You-Should-Know monthly-report contains some important additional information, qualification, and analysis.

[] STR* reports on US hotels:

-7-13 June occupancy -43.4% to 41.7%, average room rate -33.9% to US$89.09.

-31 May-6 June: -45.3% 39.3%, -35.9% US$85.01.

-May -51.7% 33.1%, -39.9% US$79.57.
-24-30 May: -43.2% 36.6%, -33.3% US$82.94.

-17-23 May: -50.2% 35.4%, -39.7% US$80.92.

-10-16 May: -54.1% 32.4%, -42.4% US$77.55.

*Notes:

-STR = Smith Travel Research. Despite that name, a hotel-research company.

-STR also reports hotel revpar (revenue per available room). We concentrate on occupancy and room rate, and as we believe revpar has little marketing value to those not working in the hotel business, we reduce our report to measures where data other than revpar is given.

[] GD* on Generation X in the UAE* about covid and travel.

-36% ‘strongly agree’ they have changed or cancelled domestic- and 41% international-travel. As we have noted about some earlier GD surveys, we cannot understand why this is a matter of ‘agreeing’; either they cancelled/changed, or they didn’t. We have seen no data, but we believe UAE domestic travel is small, under 1mn.

-65% remain ‘extremely concerned’ about covid. This may or may not be important for travel. Many would-be travellers are concerned about covid; but will they travel or not, and when?

*Notes:

-GD = Global Data, a data and analytics company.

-UAE = United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al Khaimah, Sharjah, Umm al Quwain

-Wikipedia defines Generation X as those born around 1965-80, but some for those born 1960 through 1977-85. GD does not define the term.

-We have found in other reports that GD sometimes misreads/misinterprets/misreports core travel data – apparently mostly due to imprecision in its editorial commentary. At press time, GD had not answered our request for clarifications.

-A full report on this topic in our W.Y.S.K:What-You-Should-Know monthly-report contains some important additional information, qualification, and analysis.

 

US travel forecast to fall

18 June 2020

TE* forecasts for USTA* a -45% fall in total travel spend in the US this year. That is a bigger fall than the -31% expected in domestic and international travel. That means travellers are forecast to spend less when they do travel.

This matches TE’s May forecast for STR* – a -46% fall in 2020 US hotel occupancy, then +46% in 2021.

Other findings:

-Domestic traveller spend -40% to US$583bn.

-International visitor spend -75% to US$39bn, with most of the percentage fall from Overseas visitors, -69% to US$12bn. (Spend from Canada and Mexico visitors is bigger, totalling US$17bn.)

-Although recovery is forecast from 2021 in all sectors, some sectors are forecast to be below 2019 results at the end of this forecast period, 2023.

-Still below would be 2023 total visitor arrivals (although Canada and Mexico are forecast to have passed their 2019 totals). But 2023 spend is still forecast to be below 2019 – domestic and international.

-Of course, AAGRs (annual average growth rates) are forecast to be much slower. Of those, where our database has earlier forecasts, USTA forecast a +2.5% AAGR 2018-24 for visitor arrivals; now we calculate it forecasts a -4.9% AAGR over a different 2019-23. (Even if we extrapolate, an AAGR 2019-24 would still be negative, -1.7%.)

*Notes:

-STR = Smith Travel Research. Despite that name, a hotel-research company.

-TE = Tourism Economics. Part of Oxford Economics, and unrelated to the university.

-USTA = US Travel Association. Member- not government-funded. Acts as an industry association, not a promoting body such as a DMO.

-A full report on this topic in our W.Y.S.K:What-You-Should-Know monthly-report contains some important additional information, qualification, and analysis.

 

Travel Trottings: A bumbling bureaucrat

17 June 2020

See https://wp.me/pTv9-qq
Excerpt:
…‘Our interpretation is that Guterres (Antonio, head of the United Nations) tells us that travelling can help the world recover from the damage caused by the covid coronavirus.
…‘Now for the most egregious countering fact – travel was the sole cause of the worldwide spread of covid. If the virus started in Wuhan, China, as generally believed, then it would likely have not gone further if the first carrier/s stayed in Wuhan. But they travelled, as did others, and so spread the virus worldwide.
…‘To have the chutzpah not only to ignore this fact, but to add that travel can help the recovery, seems shockingly irresponsible – if not plain stupid.’

 

TBA Tracking: Asia Pacific YTD visitor arrivals, resident departures

16 June 2020

A brief review of YTD counts*, growth only, for visitor arrivals in selected destinations, and resident/citizen departures from selected markets.

-Visitor arrivals – China -7%, Hong Kong -35%, Singapore -8%, Thailand 0.4%.

-Resident/citizen departures – China -12%, Japan -6%, Korea -16%, Taiwan +4%.

*Notes:

-January through March.

-Data from various sources, mainly DMOs, government departments, and most excerpted from our W.Y.S.K:What-You-Should-Know, published by Travel Business Analyst.

 

TBA Tracking

15 June 2020

Starting this week, and probably for at least the next one or two months, we have suspended most of our reports under this heading.

  This is because most current measures show falls of around 95-99%, and we believe that there is little marketing value in the information that one measure has fallen, say, -96.5% compared with -98.7% for another.

  In addition, those measures that arrive late, showing data from before the covid virus, or even at the start, are also almost irrelevant.

  We plan to restart as falls begin to vary – -30% here, but still -80% there. Hopefully, that will probably be from next August for some of the missing reports.

 

 

 

The Fox. Remember, I’m an industry expert in the parallel world.

*Fox – sly.  Trots – left-leaning (Trotsky) plus its more insalubrious meaning.  Foxtrots – leading the industry in a dance.