Coronavirus: Sojern data shows ease of lockdown spurs flight search activity

Latest insights from the travel insights specialist

Latest insights from travel data specialist Sojern has seen a correlation between countries that are easing their lockdowns and flight search activity

Searches and bookings remain down but in countries that have announced steps to reduce or ease their lockdowns are slightly less down, Sojern said.

The latest insights come from data collected on the 27th April, 2020 ad comes from over 350 million traveller profiles and billions of travel intent signals.

Sojern looked at data for Switzerland and Greece where some restrictions are starting to be lifted.

“We see that travel searches to Switzerland and Greece are both down by 73% year on year, but this is slightly higher when compared to countries like the UK or France, that have not yet implemented lockdown restrictions, and are down more than 80%.

“When we look more closely at Switzerland and Greece long-term, we also see an uptick in Intra Regional travel intent as early as November.

“By February 2021 we see that European travel searches to Greece are up nearly 18%. Switzerland is also showing a positive upwards trend for the same period, although we currently see it peak in January 2021.”

When Sojern looked at flight searches for more immediate travel about 87% for travel for the next 11 months to Greece, and 81% of searches to Switzerland are for travel in either Q2 or Q3.

“While bookings are a greater sign of travel confidence than searches, this is a positive sign that people are still looking for travel in the near future, far sooner than 2021,” the firm said.

“What is also encouraging is that we see an increase in flight bookings from European origins to these two countries during the same period to the point where they are only up or down a few percentage points.”

Global Flight Searches to Key European Markets:

Global Flight Bookings to Key European Markets