The year 2022 will be remembered as the year of tourism recovery for many of the most traditional destinations in Europe, the Caribbean and the Middle East. We learned that underlying travel demand remained intact once there was a removal of mobility restrictions.
However, the motivations and interests shown by travellers in this tourism revival have undergone structural changes that have affected trends and are likely to continue into the future.
To verify this, we have analysed the global evolution of tourism interests based on the millions of spontaneous interactions of travellers registered on TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel and activities portal. This analysis shows us how interest in tourism activities related to natural, active and wellness tourism have clearly increased in importance since 2019, in a trend that looks set to continue to rise.
As such tourism products such as sun & beach or cultural trips, despite being by far the biggest motivation for travel, are slowly giving way to these new activities.
Having corroborated this global trend, Mabrian discovered which destinations in the world are best positioned to be in vogue in 2023 thanks to their tourism product mix, air connectivity and hotel accommodation offering.
To do this, we have analysed more than 700 destinations around the world, identifying the top 10 destinations that offer the best balance between several factors: the importance of their active tourism, nature and wellness product offering, the growth in new air routes and incoming seats for the coming year, and the average price of hotel accommodation for the coming months.
Topping the list is Bali, Indonesia. This island paradise stands out for offering a wide range of activities related to active, nature and wellness tourism, as well as an excellent evolution of its air connectivity for 2023: 45% more new routes and a 115% increase in incoming seats. In addition, Bali offers a very competitive average hotel accommodation price for the coming months.
In second place is Crete, which is Greece’s largest island. Greece is a country that has broken tourism records during 2022, despite the absence of Russian tourists, which was previously one of its main markets. Despite being a mainly summer destination with a high amount of sun & beach product, Crete seees 57% of tourists’ comments be about active, natural or wellness tourism activities. In addition, the destination shows a 17% increase in capacity compared to last year, both for domestic and international routes. As for its accommodation offer, it is the destination with the second most competitive average hotel prices for the coming months.
The podium is closed by Algarve, located in the south of Portugal, with an interesting mix of tourism product, very competitive accommodation prices and a significant increase in air connectivity.
The destination of Antalya, in southern Turkey, is also noteworthy for being the destination with the lowest accommodation prices of all those selected, as well as showing an increase of more than 20% in air connectivity for 2023, compared to the previous year.
It is also noteworthy that both France and Italy manage to place two destinations in the top 10 of those that will stand out in 2023, while Spain does not have any destination in the top ten. This is due to the fact that the prominence of active, natural and wellness tourism products in Spain is around 30% in general, below the share of these products in other competing countries.
