There are more positive signs pointing to a travel rebound this year and in the coming years, both for leisure and business travel.
According to a report from Reuters, Spanish tourism officials expect the country’s tourism gross domestic product to reach $186 billion CAD in 2022. That would be 88% of pre-pandemic levels, versus just 57% for last year.
Officials said they expect to return to full pre-pandemic activity by 2023.
It’s not just Spain that’s painting a rosy tourism picture. The Global Business Travel Association this week said global business travel spending is expected to surge in 2022.
The association said a full recovery is expected in 2024, which should see the year end on pace with the 2019 pre-pandemic spend of $1.4 trillion. That’s a year sooner than previously forecast.
Delta Air Lines this week says it expects to earn a profit of $480 million CAD for the second half of the year.
“We’re confident that we’ll generate a meaningful profit for the full year of 2022 as the recovery resumes and accelerates in the spring and the summer,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said on an earnings call.
Delta officials said they recently surveyed corporate travellers and found that 80% expect to travel as much in the first quarter of this year as they did in the fourth quarter of last year, when business travel began to surge, at least in the U.S.
CNBC reports that Glen Hauenstein, Delta Air Lines president, said he expects demand for business travel will be strong in spring and summer “as people get back into the regular routine and feel safe traveling.”
On the other hand, the latest Traveler Confidence Index from Travel Again finds that 62% of business travellers and 58% of leisure travellers feel COVID-19 will have the same or greater impact on their lives in 2022 than it did in 2021.
Still a mixed bag, but there are some good signs out there.
