A study for interface Tourism Group carried out by ForwardKeys shows a 5.6% drop in Spanish outbound tourism last year.
As part of preparation for the main travel trade fair in the Spanish tourism market, Interface Tourism, a marketing group has given report of the Spanish outbound tourism for the year 2012. The report uses data obtained from ForwardKeys which is an analysis consultancy that specializes in travel and tourism.
The Spanish outbound market reduced by 5.6 % in 2012 according to the data. The study's special reliance is that real data of booked flights on global reservation systems (GDS) in any part of the world is analyzed by ForwardKeys which has the ability to make comparisons between data, whether historic or current, and also give future predictions with the reservations that are yet to be fulfilled.
The Director of the Interface Tourism Group office in Madrid, Chris Pomeroy, says that the Spanish market is primarily an incoming one, and there are several sources that provide the numbers and information of foreign travelers to Spain but information of Spanish outbound travel is very little. He further says that outbound travel remains crucial and one of the most profitable sectors but data that is reliable and up-to-date has increasingly become imperative for travel companies and destinations to respond quickly with well informed decisions of marketing. Chris concludes by saying that the technology provided by ForwardKeys can help bring a better picture of developments in the market and help in adjustment of marketing strategies of clients as need be.
ForwardKeys produced a map that has summarized the study's salient points and gives a clear illustration of how the 26 destinations that got more than 50,000 Spanish travelers in 2012 performed. 79.9% of all flights booked from the country were to these 26 destinations.
Compared to the year 2011, destinations in Europe were the most affected and 85% of the number of seats that were not booked in 2012 was to these particular destinations. This is not a surprise since 54% of all flights booked from Spain are to Europe. The Czech Republic and Italy recorded the biggest drops in travel in Europe.
Flights booked to Morocco from Spain went up by 19.1%. Compared to the decrease caused by the Arab Spring , this surge is slightly lower but Morocco is recovering in number of visitors quicker than other neighboring countries and during this year it will be able to recover the share of the Spanish market it had before the crisis.
The land-haul destination that is suffering most is Argentina but despite the consumer crisis, Peru surged in the same timeline by 11%, showing that it is still possible to obtain positive figures of Spanish travelers using a well-informed marketing campaign.
Thailand was undoubtedly the biggest destination worldwide for Spanish travelers last year, recording a 31.5% surge. Despite the problems that faced this country in 2011, Thailand has witnessed continuous growth unlike Tunisia or Morocco since the overall view of the destination in the market was not affected.
ForwardKeys CEO, Olivier Jager, says that their overview in the prevailing market situation can be seen as the market's x-ray and that Interface Tourism and other marketing specialists are provided with a real-time, in-depth analysis of the actual situations by booking data. Olivier further states that the official border statistics are often slow to reach the decision makers and don't provide in-depth information. He concludes by saying that the initial symptoms of a problem can be seen early enough for decisions to be made when bookings are analyzed instead of the trips made.
