ITB Survey Finds Soft U.S. Travel Market to Europe

According to the World Travel Trends Report 2010, produced by researchers IPK International and commissioned by Messe Berlin, 2010 will see the Chinese displaying a disproportionately keen interest in travel and there will be no increase in the desire for long-haul travel from North America.

Americans, the report said, are still suffering from the effects of the global economic and financial crisis. The report expects a further 5 percent decline in travel to destinations outside the American continent.
On the other hand the actions of Europeans will remain predictable for the travel industry. They intend to travel in greater numbers and appear to be unaffected by current economic reports. The survey goes on to predict that U.S. citizens will not be travelling abroad in the same numbers this year as they did last year.

In a September 2009 survey, of those questioned 65 percent stated that their travel plans were influenced by the economic situation, compared with 58 percent in January 2010. Unlike the Europeans, in North America there is considerable evidence to show that greater reductions will be made on travel expenditure, with more people vacationing in their own country.

The ITB World Travel Trends Report is based on the representative IPK International World Travel Monitor, which has been compiled annually for more than 20 years on 60 important travel markets around the world, using more than 500,000 interviews to obtain data about the volume of travel and attitudes to travel.