Long haul arrivals in Europe rested on the shoulders of Asia & Oceania markets during fourth quarter of 2014

The new results from the Air Travellers’ Traffic Barometer1 produced by European Cities Marketing* and ForwardKeys** highlight that 2014 international arrivals increased by 3.2% compared to 2013 driven by long-haul markets and more particularly Asia and Middle East.

 
ECM - ForwardKeys air travellers' traffic barometer Q4 2014

During the fourth quarter of 2014, Asia & Pacific continued driving the growth in long-haul arrivals to Europe, compensating the severe decrease in Africa (-6.9%) caused partly by the Ebola outbreak.

Regaining its bigger market share of 67% during winter season, intra-European flow, however, suffered a modest decrease of -1%, mostly due to the collapse of Russia & Ukraine markets in November and December 2014.

Yearly performance showed overall constant growths in all source subcontinents (+3.2%), despite the slowing down in the last quarter.

Solid market shares were seen in solo and couple travellers, last-month bookers, as well as vacationers staying 6 to 13 nights, for the fourth quarter of 2014. However the fastest growths were seen in group traveller (+32.7%) as well as early booker segment (+11.8%).

Current forward bookings trends for international arrivals in Europe during the first quarter of 2015 show a depressing situation for intra-regional (-0.3%) and African (-2.5%) flows while Asia & Pacific and Middle East perform above the promising average long-haul growth with respectively +17.6% and +16.1% growth compared to the first quarter of 2014.

Top 5 destinations in terms of market share remain the same for both historical and expected arrivals, among which Paris, Istanbul, and Rome stand out in advanced bookings compared to previous year.

All ECM members have exclusive access to the complete European Cities Marketing-ForwardKeys Air Travellers’ Traffic Barometer with all the graphs and analysis.

 

This analyse is based on Air Reservation Data propriety of ForwardKeys® as of 31st December 2014.
Perimeter: Includes air reservations made by passengers arriving in Europe and staying at least one night in destination, therefore excluding: “Transits”, “Day trips”, “One-way trips” and “Returns”.
Arrival period: 1 Oct – 31 Dec 2014 vs. 1 Oct – 31 Dec 2013.
Booking situation for next quarter: 1 Jan – 31 Mar 2015 vs. 1 Jan – 31 Mar 2014 according to bookings issued as of 31 Dec 2014 and as of 31 Dec 2013.

**ENDS**

 

* European Cities Marketing is a non-profit organisation improving the competitiveness and performance of leading cities of Europe by providing a platform for convention, leisure and city marketing professionals to exchange knowledge, best practice and widen their network to build new business. European Cities Marketing is promoting and linking the interests of 110 members from more than 100 major cities in 36 countries.

Contact information

Flavie Baudot, press@europeancitiesmarketing.com, +33 380 56 02 00

 

** ForwardKeys.com is a service of Forward Data S.L, a Market Research and Consulting Company registered in Spain. ForwardKeys is a Business Intelligence service bringing a new approach to operational traveller data intelligence for Hotels Chains, Tourism boards and Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) leveraging non confidential Air reservation information. ForwardKeys provides to:

DMOs and Tourism Boards with travellers’ trends information and means to monitor and measure the impact of their marketing efforts to drive more business to their destination.

Hotel chains with ways to quantify future demand and anticipate market trends to optimize sales, marketing and revenue management efforts, using traveller’s reservation, source market, arrival, return date and future travel information.

Contact information

Sébastien Cron, press@forwardkeys.com, +33 972 221 570