• Men overtake women in amount of luggage they travel with

• Travel insurance now trending for the younger traveler

3 September 2021 – After months of restrictions, travelers are beginning to regain the confidence to embark on new adventures. The travel tech company Kiwi.com has uncovered new travel behaviors emerging as travel recovers.

The pandemic has reinforced interest in last-minute travel booking, shortening the average booking window to a record short time. It is clear, however, that women tend to book further in advance, usually between three weeks and two months before the start of their trip, while men prefer last-minute trips, sometimes booked only 0-3 days in advance, especially those aged 25-60 years.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen travel insurance become more essential than ever to protect against possible unforeseen events. Global data collected in 2021 indicates that insurance contracting has increased by 117% compared to 2019, with men booking this service the most (57.1%). Going deeper into this topic, Kiwi.com data shows that men and women between the ages of 25-39 are the most likely to purchase insurance at more than 45%, whereas less than 6% of men and women over 60 choose to buy insurance. When it comes to nationality, Americans, French, Italian, Brits, and Czechs are among those who purchase travel insurance most often.

The same pattern is seen with luggage booking: passengers between the ages of 25-39 travel with the most luggage, while those over 60 tend to travel much lighter. Additionally, the data points out that men (57.7%) book more luggage than women; a contradiction of the gender prejudices still prevalent in contemporary society. Americans, French, Germans, Brits, and Italians travel with the most luggage.

“Our data dispels the myth that women travel with huge amounts of luggage. Although women tend to be more conscientious when it comes to their travel plans, in line with the general belief that women take much longer to pack than men, who tend to do it in the hours before departure, such correlation is not the case with the amount of luggage, as shown by our recent data,” said Eliška Řezníček Dočkalová, Senior Director of Customer Experience at Kiwi.com. “And men surprised us again with their interest in insurance and ancillaries, as we have registered more men purchasing extra services than women.”

A significant difference is meanwhile observed in the average cost of travel. Young people between 18-24 years old spend the least on air transport, approximately 210 euros while adults between 40-60 years old have a higher budget, around 290 euros. Generally, travelers from Thailand, South Africa, Ukraine, Italy, and Greece pay the least for the tickets.

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About Kiwi.com

Kiwi.com is a leading travel tech company founded in 2012. Its proprietary algorithm – Virtual Interlining – allows users to build unique itineraries to combine flights and ground transportation from more than 800 carriers. Kiwi.com powers more than 100 million searches every day.

Media Contacts

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