Coronavirus Pounds Flight Bookings to and from Asia Pacific Region

According to ForwardKeys, one of the world’s leading travel analytics company, the travel setback caused by the coronavirus outbreak has now spread beyond China, with other parts of the Asia Pacific region experiencing a 10.5 percent slowdown in outbound travel bookings for March and April, excluding trips to and from China and Hong Kong.

As of 9th February, the setback looks likely to be most marked in North East Asia, where outbound bookings for March & April, are 17.1 percent behind where they were at the equivalent moment last year. Bookings from South Asia are 11.0 percent behind; from South East Asia are 8.1 percent behind and from Oceania 3.0 percent behind.

By comparison, the all-important Chinese outbound market is much more severely affected. Currently, bookings for March & April are set to be just 55.9 percent of what they were at the equivalent point in 2019. Forward bookings to Asia Pacific are 58.3 percent behind; bookings to Europe are 36.7 percent behind, to Africa & the Middle East are 56.1 percent behind and to the Americas they are 63.2 percent behind.

Looking backwards over the three-week period following the imposition of government travel restrictions, in response to the Coronavirus outbreak, outbound travel from China has fallen by 57.5 percent. Travel to all parts of the world has been severely down, with the Americas worst affected in relative terms and Asia Pacific in absolute terms.

Travel to Asia Pacific, which receives 75 percent of the Chinese outbound market, was down by 58.3 percent; travel to Europe was down by 41.7 percent; travel to Africa & the Middle East was down by 51.6 percent and travel to the Americas was down by 64.1 percent.