• Kuala Lumpur, Mexico, Manila, Bogota: Travelers this year are heading to exotic and warm destinations

17 December 2021 – Despite the epidemiological situation and rapidly changing conditions for entering tourist destinations, travelers’ interest in flights has not waned for the winter months and approaching Christmas holidays.  According to data from Kiwi.com, bookings for traveling at this time last year (during the period of December up to the beginning of January 2020)  fell by two thirds, compared to 2019.  This year, however, bookings have seen a three-time increase and reached 92% of pre-pandemic volumes. 

Most booked destinations are Kyiv, London, Kuala Lumpur, Istanbul, and Budapest, while in the top 20 we also see, recently re-opened, New York.  Exotic destinations are very popular on Kiwi.com: as well as Kuala Lumpur, we see Mexico City making it into the top ten, Manila, and Bogota.

Going overseas and to warm destinations dominate travel searches on Kiwi.com for the festive period.  While New York is the most searched destination, Dubai, Miami, Bangkok, Barcelona, São Paulo, Cancún, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Orlando, Las Vegas, and Mexico City are among the top 20.  

The nationalities that are, and will be, traveling between December and the early part of January 2022 are Americans, Ukrainians, Russians, Malaysians, and Romanians.  In Europe, the leaderboard for travel popularity came mostly from Italy, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Portugal. 

“Bookings by travelers for this year’s winter season are currently at 92% of 2019 volumes. We assume that this positive trend is the result, not only of progress in vaccination and the ongoing renewal of flights but also of the fact that travelers are getting used to measures related to the coronavirus pandemic and are not allowing them to disrupt their trips to the same extent as last year,” said Eliška Řezníček Dočkalová, Director of Customer Experience at Kiwi.com.

The increase in bookings through Kiwi.com is corroborated by the Booking.com portal: compared to the winter of 2019/2020, the number of accommodation bookings made through the website has increased by almost 40% (38.76). Almost 50% of the travelers this year choose to check-in on Friday, Saturday, or Thursday and spend at their destination, on average, 3.8 days. 

For 2022, London, Budapest, Istanbul, Paris, and Rome are in the top booked destinations so far, followed by Kuala Lumpur, Milan, Manila, Cancún, and Barcelona.  New York remains the number one for searched destinations while it is 14th most booked.

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About Kiwi.com

Kiwi.com is a leading travel tech company headquartered in the Czech Republic, employing over 1,000 people worldwide. Kiwi.com’s innovative Virtual Interlining algorithm allows users to combine flights across legacy and low-cost airlines into one single itinerary. Kiwi.com performs 2 billion price checks per day across 95% of global flight content enabling customers to find better route options and prices other search engines can’t see. Fifty million searches are carried out every day on Kiwi.com’s website and over 25,000 seats are sold daily.

Media Contacts

Kiwi.com
Carol Barnes, Head of Global Communications, Kiwi.com
[email protected]