Flights & Travel Demands Are Improving Across The Board

As Covid headlines subside (at least somewhat) and clarity around international travel continues to improve, consumers are looking at future travel options and at a much higher rate than they were just a month ago. 

The announcement of looser travel restrictions between the EU, UK, and the US were positive developments for leisure travel sentiment, and that positive sentiment is filtering through in more data indicators each week. 

The below data which tracks flight search demand via Kayak, highlights the 2YR average growth in total flight searches for US domestic travel and Intl. travel.

Notice the delta dip in July into late August, but since the bottoming flight searches have been in acceleration mode, which should be a precursor to faster bookings growth. 

The searches for outbound travel have started to catch up with domestic travel, which we think is a net positive for OTAs like EXPE that specializes in more complex vacation packages.  Note the dip in search activity over the last two days appears Halloween comp related, so not likely indicative of a new trend. 

Seasonally, travel bookings slowdown in Q4, and we expect that seasonal pattern to hold; however, given the pent-up demand and need to rebook cancelled and postponed travel, we think the industry should show nice accelerating growth.