How international travel changed due to pandemic
Travel insurer Seven Corners has released data trends related to current patterns of domestic and international travel compared to pre-pandemic years
As the pandemic begins to subside, travel continues to be limited with ever-changing restrictions. Seven Corners pulled relevant data to understand how domestic and international travel is affected by the pandemic, who is currently traveling and where they are visiting.
When reviewing current travel and pre-pandemic travel insurance purchases, there is a definite change, with a 90-per-cent increase in domestic travel in 2021 compared to 2019.
Trends suggest international travel is increasing as travel restrictions are lifted. Looking ahead to 2022, international coverage plans are being insured eight times as often as domestic travel plans.
In the first quarter of 2021, Seven Corners saw only 88 per cent of the travel start dates for the same time period in 2019. This trend remained consistent for the second quarter of 2021, when Seven Corners noted 89 per cent of the travel start dates that were experienced in Q2 of 2019.
However, trends are improving for the third and fourth quarters of 2021. As of mid-July, Seven Corners was already seeing the same number of travel start dates that existed at this point in 2019. Looking ahead to Q4, there are over 30 per cent more travel start dates than the total seen at this point in 2019.
Planning ahead more common
International travel requires planning ahead now more than ever due to the many unknowns that come with the pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been an increase in the amount of time between the point of travel insurance purchase and the trip departure date. Pre-pandemic, the average time elapsed from insurance purchase to trip departure was just over two months. So far in 2021, that time period has increased to three months and six days.
Time between travel protection purchase and trip departure has also increased for domestic travel. In 2019, this length of time was two months, and in 2021, it increased to two months and 20 days.
However, the opposite trend is occurring for medical only travel coverage. Travel medical plans do not include pre-departure benefits for trip cancellation. In 2019, customers typically purchased travel medical plans 19 days ahead of their trip. In 2021, customers shortened the buying cycle to only nine days before departure date. This shift is likely partially due to the nature of travel medical plans, which don’t include a trip cancellation component that begins protecting the consumer the day after a plan is purchased.
Turks and Caicos most popular
Seven Corners protects travellers across the globe with a variety of travel insurance options. The company’s data shows that people who are buying travel medical plans for international trips are most commonly departing from the US, India, China, Canada and Brazil.
Turks and Caicos popular destination
For 2021, the most popular destination is Turks and Caicos for international travellers from around the world. Following this is Costa Rica, Mexico, Thailand and Israel. In 2019’s pre-pandemic travel, Turks and Caicos was not in the top 100 travel destinations but has now skyrocketed to the number one destination choice. While Mexico has always been a popular destination choice, Costa Rica and Thailand also increased in popularity during the pandemic.
Conversely, European destinations decreased in popularity. France, which was the number one travel destination in 2019, fell to the seventh most popular travel spot in 2021. Spain and the United Kingdom also declined as desired locations.
The major reasoning behind this change in destinations’ popularity appears to be directly related to the destination’s experience with Covid-19 and their requirements for visitors.