Despite revenge travel, domestic travel still booms!

International travel has undoubtedly seen a massive boom in the last few years since the pandemic with a phenomenon known as, “Revenge Travel”. ?No doubt after the cocooning forced upon us during the COVID era people all over the world were determined to get out and about again. And, winging their way to foreign lands seemed even more romantic and appealing than ever but also at this time a couple of other things happened. The awareness of the importance of sustainability and the effect that travel had been having on the environment became greatly magnified - and for a time at least, we were all confined to more local travel as a way to avoid the pandemic being spread across provinces, or in the case of America, their states.

So, everywhere domestic travel became more of a thing and for the first time many people’s eyes were opened to much of what was available locally and locals were also encouraged to support the local industry which, in every country, had taken a massive beating. Oddly though, when the opportunity finally arose for us to travel internationally, despite the great desire for revenge travel, domestic travel still boomed. This got me thinking is this really the case in South Africa? I do have my own theory on this but I jump ahead of myself. Let me first explain why I got onto this subject and give you some idea of what is happening globally.

Domestic travel is booming internationally

A part of an interesting article I was reading stated, “A?McKinsey & Company report?released this week breaks down global tourism and hospitality trends. McKinsey estimated domestic travel (talking about USA travel) spending will reach $6 billion in 2030, followed by the $1.7 billion estimated for travel within a particular region”. It is a report about global travel as a whole, so this appears to be happening everywhere. McKinsey associate partner, “Jasperina de Vries” mentions the sustainability awareness created by COVID as being the primary reason for “closer-to-home” travel saying, “People say that sustainability is important – and do not necessarily do it - but, at the same time, we see that awareness is growing, and travellers are starting to act on it. We, for example, learned that 20% of travellers are actually reporting cutting down on travel in the last year in an effort to be more sustainable. So, all in all, I think these combined trends are driving a significant increase in nearby travel.”

Is this the case in South Africa?

As much as domestic travel certainly has boomed since the pandemic, I’m not convinced that this closer-to-home travel is as prevalent here as in other places. Yes, during COVID in SA, more people explored locally and realised that “local truly is lekker”. And, there now certainly is an awareness of the travel sustainability issues. But, I believe, the difference is that we have access to several highly affordable packages to great nearby destinations. Exotic Places like Mauritius, Zanzibar and Thailand, offering a very different travel experience to our own, are very tempting, especially considering that a week in such places as these can cost less than the same time spent in many local hot spots!

Keeping it local

We certainly do need to be aware of limiting air travel wherever possible and I’m encouraged to see that since the pandemic our younger population has a great desire to travel locally. Our local tourism and hospitality industries will greatly benefit from the kind of domestic travel boom being experienced in some places, but for a domestic travel boom to be sustained, it will require that some of our more desirable local destinations reduce their prices for locals. Affordability is a major factor for South Africans right now and as much as they love the beach, the bush, the berg, the braai and their great outdoor life – they’ll go for something different if it is the best bang for their buck!?