Skip to main content

Read our updating Travel report, Travel Trends 2023. 

Travel's eagerly awaited return

 

After flights were grounded and travelers stayed home in 2020, several emerging trends are pointing to the start of a recovery in 2021. Learn what’s happening around the world now and into the future.

Global airline spending took a $352 billion hit in 2020, taking the industry back to levels not seen in over 15 years. But pent-up savings, pent-up demand to spend and venture farther from home and the green light from governments are providing momentum for recovery.

This report, developed by the Mastercard Economics Institute and the fourth in Mastercard’s Recovery Insights series, looks at the next wave of travel and its drivers, including a return to pre-pandemic levels for domestic travel in several countries, a shrinking gap between global business travel and global leisure travel, the emergence of 10 travel routes and growth in spending categories and what they mean for travel.

"One-fifth of countries have returned to at least 90% of pre-pandemic levels for domestic flight activity.”

Get access to Recovery Insights: Ready for Takeoff? to learn more about travel recovery in certain parts of the world and what to expect beyond 2021.

Download the report

Related resources

Report
Strength in numbers: Coordinating small businesses in the tourism sector

Proper coordination across the tourism sector through a focus on cross-industry customer journeys can empower small businesses by creating the same economies of scale and liquidity that large businesses rely on.

Report
Customer Loyalty & Engagement in the Covid Era

Learn how retail marketers can uncover strategies to build and regain customer loyalty through pandemic recovery.

Recovery Insights
The Shift to Digital

The Covid-19 outbreak has accelerated the digitization of how we work, live and shop. Learn how businesses navigated the shift to digital, how consumers responded, and the spending trends likely to stay in a post-Covid-19 world.