The role of the vaccine in the recovery of tourism

“Vaccine will save tourism” for the industry’s restart: while the pandemic seems unabated and variants of the virus threaten attempts to contain contagions, the eyes of operators are all on travel restrictions and vaccination trends in various countries.

But is vaccine uptake stimulating tourism?

Have tourists started planning trips again?

In fact, from the beginning of the vaccinations to date, it does not seem there’s been a significant change in flight searches and the worldwide growth rate is -0.1%, despite the fact that in early November there was an increase in interest in traveling.

However, to answer these questions, we need to look specifically at those destinations where vaccine development is expected to have a direct reflection on tourism.

Vaccination coverage of the population is certainly a factor that affects the safety of travel and some countries, especially those on islands, are working to immunize residents. In Seychelles, for example, an immunization campaign was launched at the end of January for the islands, with the aim of vaccinating the majority of the population by mid-March and reopening to tourism. In fact, the growth recorded from January 19 to date is 1.39%, despite the fact that the archipelago is already open to vaccinated travelers.

 

Even Greece has organized its own vaccination campaign to help the sector: The Government has focused on the minor islands, isolated places where the virus has spread little, starting immediately the vaccination of the local population in order to immunize the area and give hope to summer tourism. The announcement of the program was made public a few days ago and perhaps it is still early to assess its impact: at the moment, the variation in searches for flights to Greece is +1.02%.

One might think that the countries that are receiving the most searches are those with a higher rate of vaccinated people, perceived by travelers as safer places: in fact, Israel, the first country in the world in terms of the number of vaccinated people per 100 people, has a growth rate of 1.6%, while the second in the ranking, the United Arab Emirates, -0.3%.

Many countries are choosing a different approach to stimulate tourism, for example, by exempting travelers from the mandatory quarantine: this is the case in many African countries, which have been little affected by the virus, but above all in archipelagos that are notoriously touristy. The Bahamas, for example, reopened to tourism on November 1, freeing tourists from the obligation of self-isolation: since then, flight searches have increased by 1.5%. In the Maldives, similarly, since January 1, 2021, visitors can freely visit Covid-free islands and resorts without quarantine or restrictions: the change is +1.7%.

From an initial survey, therefore, it seems that at the moment the vaccine still has a weak role in the recovery of tourism: even in those countries where local governments have tried to use the vaccine as a lever, it seems as though there haven’t been yet positive results in terms of travel interest. However, in addition to the initiative of individual countries, it will also be necessary to monitor the evolution of transport conditions: experiments are currently underway on the IATA Travel Pass, a certification system shared by all airlines, a digital passport that would help passengers manage and comply with the travel requirements of countries of origin and destination. Finally, while discussions are still underway in Europe on the possibility of introducing a health passport for vaccinated people, in Denmark it will be possible to obtain one around mid-February, enabling Danes to travel in and out of the country without quarantines and restrictions.

 

 

 

About Destination

Destination is a market intelligence project created by Lybra – developers of the most complete, machine learning, data-centric Revenue Management System (RMS) available on the market – to share real-time, region-specific statistics, information and trends in the world of tourism. 

Every day, Lybra analyzes millions of datasets – data collected from thousands of hotels’ PMS and flight search data from a leading metasearch booking engine – to help hoteliers “look ahead to better understand the present;” in other words, Lybra helps hoteliers understand the upcoming demand for their destination and gives them the revenue management tools and actionable insights necessary, to maximize bookings and revenue. 

The aim of Destination is to give hoteliers and DMOs a more expansive view of tourism news and trends in different regions around the world. Destination produces weekly Travel Demand Reports, which share tourism developments for a specific country/region and analyze how the region’s travel news has impacted tourist demand. Follow Destination on LinkedIn to gain access to the upcoming Travel Demand Reports, which are published every Tuesday. 

Lybra Destination con la potencia de Zucchetti Travel Data Lake

El Travel Data Lake de Grupo Zucchetti recopila y gestiona cada día millones de búsquedas de pernoctaciones, gracias a las cuales es posible tener una visión estadísticamente relevante sobre la demanda futura de los turistas y extraer información valiosa sobre el perfil de los viajeros.  El sistema recoge de forma anónima las búsquedas de alojamiento realizadas por los viajeros a través de los CRS de Grupo Zucchetti, devolviendo una previsión precisa de la demanda hotelera (período, destino,
duración de la estancia, etc.).  Zucchetti es la mayor software house italiana: con una experiencia de más de 40 años, en 2021 cuenta con más de 700.000 clientes, ingresos por más de 1.300 millones de euros y un equipo de más de 8.000 personas. Gracias a su división Hospitality, que proporciona herramientas digitales a más del 50% de los alojamientos de Italia, Zucchetti desarrolló en 2020 el Travel Data Lake, el mayor centro de previsión de Italia, con el objetivo de centralizar los datos de previsión de los motores de reserva del grupo.
Los datos son procesados por Destination, la plataforma de market intelligence de Lybra Tech, una empresa de Grupo Zucchetti especializada en tecnología turística y análisis de datos. Lybra Destination es un dashboard multi-fuente que ayuda a los Decision Makers a explotar el potencial de los datos futuros: es la única herramienta que puede gestionar todos los datos del territorio analizando múltiples fuentes simultáneamente. Aprovechando el poder de la IA y el machine learning, Lybra Destination ayuda a los destinos turísticos a orientar su toma de decisiones y a controlar el impacto de sus actividades de promoción.

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Assistant is a Revenue Management System designed to optimize strategy and sales for independent hotels, groups and hotel chains.

Destination was created to empower destinations to actively act on the future and move away from passive analysis of historical data.

Business enables the integration of real-time data on tourism in Italy into any dashboard or B.I.