Travel’s direct demand engine for thousands of brands, Sojern has revealed that stringent lockdowns and sterilisation programmes across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) have had a positive impact on reducing the average daily increase of confirmed COVID-19 cases.
With over 2.4 million confirmed cases and more than 165,000 deaths from COVID-19 globally as of April 20, 2020, Sojern continues to see significant impact across all industries around the world, including the travel industry.
With access to real-time traveller audiences and unmatched visibility into global travel demand, the company is in a unique position to share the current travel trends at the forefront of marketers’ minds
Sojern said whilst no-one can anticipate the full impact of these exceptional circumstances, its data can provide some insight into how travellers are responding to the current situation, the more long-term impact that COVID-19 will have on destinations, and when the first signs of recovery start to appear.
According to Sojern, its insights are based on data collected on April 20, 2020. on over 350 million traveller profiles and billions of travel intent signals.
On April 18, 2020, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said:“South Africa’s restrictions have succeeded in reducing the country’s average daily increase of confirmed cases from 42% to about 4% since the lockdown began on March 27th.”
On April 18,2020, the Moroccan government announced an extension of the lockdown for another month, to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
“With lockdowns maintained, and preventative measures being taken, it is no surprise that flight bookings to the region remain low, seeing little to no movement since last week,” Sojern said in a blog post.
According to Sojern, Qatar and South Africa reflect very small upticks in bookings this week, but still remain extremely low in comparison to last year, at 89% and 83% below the bookings experienced at the same time in 2019.
When comparing hotel bookings and searches globally, the MEA region remains one of the most resilient to the impact of the pandemic so far. By indexing all bookings and searches to zero on January 5, 2020, removing the bias of larger search volumes in larger regions, Sojern has seen a much clearer comparison of where increases and decreases have occurred in comparison to other regions globally.
the company stated that when comparing the six regions displayed in the graph from a search perspective, Africa and the Middle East have maintained the highest level of travel intent, experiencing the lowest drops in searches. With regards to bookings, the Middle East is the highest, seeing the smallest drop in bookings. However, Africa has experienced a bigger impact on bookings seeing the second largest decrease compared to the five other regions, Sojern noted.
