Digital Travel Sales – Trends : Increased appetites for leisure travel among middle-class consumers in China will drive this grow along with India, Indonesia and Vietnam. IATA confirms that this Top Asia Pacific Players will add a tally of 1.39 billion new passengers to Asia Pacific Region by 2035.
The Marketing experts estimated worldwide digital travel sales—which include leisure and unmanaged business travel sales booked via any device—will rise 11.5% in 2017 to nearly $629.81 billion. According to the latest statistics in 2016 it has reached $564.87 billion according to the © Statista 2017 statistics. Also Statista has predicted Double-digit growth in emerging markets, particularly those in Asia-Pacific and Latin America, will help fuel gains throughout the forecast period, as explored in a new Market reports.
This timeline shows the online travel sales worldwide from 2014 to 2020. In 2016, global online travel sales totaled 564.87 billion U.S. dollars. This figure is projected to grow to 755.94 billion U.S. dollars in 2019.
North America was the world’s largest market for digital travel sales in 2016. But in 2017, the researchers expect Asia-Pacific will claim this title, one year earlier than previously estimated. Faster expansion of digital travel commerce in China will primarily drive this gain.
This timeline shows the share of global online travel sales, by region from 2014 to 2020. In 2015, North America accounted for 35.8 percent of the total global online travel sales. This figure was projected to drop to 28.9 percent by 2019. The Year 2017 is going to be a significant year, because the trend is going to change from the 2017.
Stronger-than-expected sales gains in Asia-Pacific have also led researchers to raise its growth estimates for worldwide digital travel sales for each year of the forecast period. According to © Statista 2017 statistics Asia Pacific sales will account for 34.3% by end of 2017 to become the world’s largest market for digital travel sales.
Furthermore, low oil prices, which are helping to keep fuel costs down, have allowed airlines to pass along savings to consumers in the form of cheaper airfares. This has resulted in increased demand for travel globally and, consequently, a boost in airline profitability. According to a December 2015 report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), global passenger air travel grew 6.7% in 2015 and will climb another 6.9% in 2016. Geneva – The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced full-year global passenger traffic results for 2016 showing demand (revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) rose 6.3% compared to 2015 (or 6.0% if adjusted for the leap year). This strong performance was well ahead of the ten-year average annual growth rate of 5.5%. Capacity rose 6.2% (unadjusted) compared to 2015, pushing the load factor up 0.1 percentage points to a record full-year average high of 80.5%. A particularly strong performance was reported for December with an 8.8% rise in demand outstripping 6.6% capacity growth.
“Air travel was a good news story in 2016. Connectivity increased with the establishment of more than 700 new routes. And a $44 fall in average return fares helped to make air travel even more accessible. As a result, a record 3.7 billion passengers flew safely to their destination. Demand for air travel is still expanding. With fuel prices expected to remain low this year, the IATA anticipates another boost in 2017. Digital Marketing Researches predicts worldwide digital travel sales will see double-digit growth through 2018 as a result of this incremental behavior in the Air Transportation.
IATA Forecasts Passenger Demand to Double Over 20 Years
The forecast for passenger growth confirms that the biggest driver of demand will be the Asia-Pacific region. It is expected to be the source of more than half the new passengers over the next 20 years. China will displace the US as the world’s largest aviation market (defined by traffic to, from and within the country) around 2024*.
India will displace the UK for third place in 2025*, while Indonesia enters the top ten at the expense of Italy. Growth will also increasingly be driven within developing markets. Over the past decade the developing world’s share of total passenger traffic has risen from 24% to nearly 40%, and this trend is set to continue.
Also According to IATA, the Fast-growing markets are as follows, and if you look at the tally. China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam are among the Top 5 resulting total passengers of 2.134 Billions.
The five fastest-growing markets in terms of additional passengers per year over the forecast period will be;
- China (817 million new passengers for a total of 1.3 billion)
- US (484 million new passengers for a total of 1.1 billion)
- India (322 million new passengers for a total of 442 million)
- Indonesia (135 million new passengers for a total of 242 million)
- Vietnam (112 million new passengers for a total of 150 million)
However, in dollar figures, estimates for digital travel sales in every major region (except Asia-Pacific) have been revised downward as a result of fluctuating exchange rates, which have been updated to reflect average rates in 2015. Global currencies of most major markets included in forecast have weakened in 2015 against the US dollar, leading to numerous reductions to travel sales forecasts.
And overall, worldwide digital travel sales will rise 11.5% in 2017 to reach $629.81 billion. Growth will continue steadily throughout 2020 and it is predicted to reach $817.54 billion by then.
What’s happening in Sri Lanka
Tourist arrivals and earnings had begun increasing in 2009, soon after the Civil War in the country, since then industry has shown significant improvements in all the forms. Global Digital transformation has helped the country significantly with all these popular booking engines have started supporting the local hotels and opened up their affiliate offices and their own operational offices in Sri Lanka. As a country Sri Lanka has succeeded in the Information Technology and usage of ICT in B2B, B2C. Our E-Business readiness is ranked very high in the Global indexes and Sri Lanka is leading in South Asia in almost every index when it comes E-Business Readiness.
Following Graph shows how the Tourist Arrivals have gone up from 2010 to date.
Source: Statista / emarketer.com / IATA.org / reports.weforum.org / sltda.lk – Compiled by Anjana Gunatillake of Lanka Business News