At this week’s Travel Trends Conference we unveiled our latest report, Travel in 2022, which draws on new consumer research and industry insights to outline the holiday trends we expect to see over the next 12 months.

The report highlights that, despite the pandemic, the desire for overseas travel remains strong with an encouraging 61% of people saying they plan to go abroad within the next year. If people do book and travel in these numbers, it will mean a significant increase on the 16% who went on a foreign holiday from February 2020 to July 2021, though down slightly on the 64% who went abroad in 2019.

A significant contributor to people feeling more positive about travel was the introduction of a single red list and the reduced testing requirements for fully vaccinated travellers in October, which ABTA and industry partners had been lobbying for. Our research finds 38% of people said they were much more likely to book a holiday than before these changes were brought in. 

After a turbulent couple of years, the signs are that an increasing number of people will be taking a long overdue overseas holiday next year. But the rising Covid cases across Europe are a stark reminder that we’re not out of the woods yet, and we continue to monitor the developments and provide updates to Members through our operational bulletins. We are also engaging with Government ahead of the next strategic review, highlighting the actions needed to make travelling abroad simpler. 

Mark Tanzer, Chief Executive