Rebound in ground travelling
DUBAI: Ater flights were largely grounded and travellers stayed home in 2020, the return to travel has become one of the most anticipated—and uncertain—activities of 2021. Mastercard released Recovery Insights: Ready for Takeoff?, a view into key travel trends in the air and on the ground, around the world. While the global travel recovery remains uneven, a rebound in ground travel and pick-up in domestic flight bookings are showing encouraging signs.
The report, developed by the Mastercard Economics Institute, draws on aggregated and anonymized sales activity across the global Mastercard network to beter understand the next phase for travel, its drivers and challenges. This includes the balance between leisure and business, local and long-distance, and saving and spending. The report also looks at the spending categories seeing an uptick and what they signal for travel recovery.
“There are indicators of recovery across some markets in the Middle East & Africa, for example gas spending in Nigeria and Egypt are already above 2019 peaks. Although we still have some way to go amidst ongoing uncertainty, there is an appetite among consumers to move and discover. Alongside safe, systematic opening of markets and continued momentum in vaccine rollouts, countries will start to see more signs of gradual travel recovery,” said David Mann, Chief Economist, Asia and MEA, Mastercard.
Global gasoline spending is up 13%* from its previous peak in 2019. In Egypt and Nigeria, spend at gas stations are already higher than their 2019 peaks, while in the UAE and Kenya, they have equalized previous levels. Road trips—the big trend of 2020 around the world—aren’t going anywhere.
As people prepare to reemerge, pent-up savings help fuel sales across a variety of categories. Sales for beauty salons and luggage stores are up, likely reflecting plans to move around and increase in-person interactions. Spending at bike stores (+62%) also grew. Furthermore, sales at toupee and wigs stores have increased 75% in the past year compared to pre-pandemic, with increases in this category also seen among consumers in South Africa.