Skift travel health index tips

The Skift Travel Health Index, boosted by the spring travel season, gained 3 percentage points to reach 108 in April 2024. This represented an 8% surge over last year.

The travel industry continued to strengthen in February: The Skift Travel Health Index stood at 107, 7% growth over February 2023.

The Skift Travel Health Index is transitioning to a new benchmark. For the past few years, we’ve been judging the travel industry’s performance against 2019, the last good year for travel before Covid hit.

The global travel industry is on an upswing, with all regions registering growth over the previous month, according to the Skift Travel Health Index: September 2023 Highlights. The Skift Travel Health Index stands at 106, three points higher than August 2023 – a new record high.

The Skift Travel Health Index: August 2023 Highlights shows a 1 percentage point uptick for August 2023. The index now stands at 103, compared to a baseline of 100 in August 2019.

Skift Research has been tracking the performance of the major travel sectors in 22 countries since the beginning of the pandemic in the Skift Travel Health Index. We have seen a steady upward trend, but the final push to full recovery seems more stubborn than we initially thought.

Travel’s performance dropped in November from 84 to 81 points, according to Skift Research’s latest analysis in the Skift Travel Health Index: November 2022 Highlights report.

Skift Research has been tracking the performance of the travel industry since the start of the pandemic, and we have analyzed all the peaks and troughs, highs and lows for three years now. The last months of 2022 saw little movement in the global Index score as continued growth in demand in some areas was counterbalanced by increased worries about the broader economy.

The Skift Travel Health Index is up to 89 points in January 2023, falling only short 11 percentage points from January 2019 travel performance levels. The January score is the highest achieved since the onset of the pandemic. With growing travel demand, we expect 2023 to be a powerful year for the travel sector.

Global travel recovery doesn’t seem too far. The Skift Travel Health Index witnessed a month-on-month uptick of 4 percentage points (pp) in February 2023 and now stands at 93. We anticipate this year to bring recovery and growth to the travel industry.

April 2023 marked an important milestone: The full recovery of travel since the pandemic – as measured by the Skift Travel Health Index. And it’s a record, with our index passing the level last reached in 2019.

Skift Research’s Travel Health Index continued to track above 2019 levels in July, with a 2 point increase from July 2019, according to our latest monthly update.