Major sporting events drive up prices across all travel categories
Now more than ever, data is crucial to answering business critical questions, identifying opportunities, and mitigating risks. Even some of the most advanced algorithms will have trouble looking deep into the future to make accurate predictions. To combat this uncertainty when analyzing trends across all travel categories, we’ve decided to produce a quarterly travel price index report for air, hotel, rail, and rental car prices.
Market snapshot: Europe
While intercontinental business fares from Europe to most destinations in North and South America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East are dropping, economy fares are trending upward versus last quarter. Domestic airfares are also trending upward, driven by steady demand, a decrease in capacity in some key markets, and several upcoming international sporting events – including the Paris Olympics and the European Football Championship. The intercontinental fare increase from Europe to North America is softening due the full recovery of airline networks. From Europe to Asia, business fares are down, impacted by lower demand from Germany to China, while the increase in economy fares is driven by strong demand to India.
We are seeing hotel rates continue their downward trend across Europe versus last quarter, with the exception of markets around Paris and Berlin, where a significant increase can be attributed to the summer sporting events. Even though most countries are flat or decreasing quarter over quarter (QOQ) trending, most major markets in Europe are seeing significant increases year over year (YOY), and European occupancy levels are trending higher than 2023.
Rail ticket and rental car prices are also increasing across the region both YOY and QOQ. Rail demand is driven by a domestic airline capacity decrease in Germany, France, and the UK. The SNCF (French Railways) will offer and additional 400,000 high-speed rail tickets compared to last summer to keep up with demand fuel by the Paris Olympics. Car rental companies across the continent are further optimizing fleet and yield management, maintaining a conservatively planned fleet at a tight level, where customer demand and vehicle availability are always at an optimum margin to achieve positive effects in terms of utilization and pricing.
What is an index?
As a quick reminder, it’s important to note that this report is not a forecast. A forecast uses published rates and fares, along with other socioeconomic data and world events to predict how rates and fares will change. This is an index. An index quantifies how published rates and fares are changing and avoids making predictions for long-term trends.
The Advito travel price index looks at actual, historical pricing data and compares it with future shopping data for the remainder of the quarter to analyze variance versus the previous period and the trend versus the previous quarter. We are shopping millions of public price points, and our shopping technology behaves like a business traveler. Our first index was released in Q4 2022, and after a positive response from clients looking to understand pricing trends in the short- to medium-term, we have produced similar reports for each quarter.
The full report (currently only available for Advito clients) features global trends, a breakdown of each region, as well as travel sector types. In the air analysis, we look at both business and economy class fares, as well as intercontinental and regional travel. In the hotel report, we’re analyzing the variance in average daily rates between Q3 2023 and Q3 2024, as well as the quarter-over-quarter trend. The result is a reliable report based on published airfares and hotel rates that does not make long-term predictions.
One of the most challenging parts of being a travel manager today is understanding how the constant change in the industry affects your program. Our air and hotel experts have used the travel price index to come up with some key focus areas for travel managers to address as we head into the second half of the year.
Air program focus areas
There are several areas to focus on in your air program to ensure that it is set up for success heading into the second half of 2024. Now is the time to monitor upcoming savings opportunities. This is the end of airfare inflation. The imbalance between strong client demand and low airline seat supply is now over. As a consequence, the airline corporate contracting approach has started softening. Ensure you understand the value and potential of NDC in your program. Finally, don’t lose sight of sustainability. Assess your airline partners across multiple factors like airline fleet efficiency, investments in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), status of science-based sustainability targets, meaningful offsetting strategies, and other initiatives, both on the ground and on board.
Hotel program focus areas
In your managed hotel program, it’s time to start thinking about sourcing your 2025 program. Consider negotiating your 2025 program for an additional 2-3 months to transition to an off-cycle program. Suppliers are often more responsive outside of peak sourcing season and may be more willing to negotiate several months into their own budgeting cycle. You may need to do this in both 2025 and 2026 to create a program date range that makes the most sense for your organization, potentially aligning with your fiscal year. It’s also important to consider program cohesion when you source your upcoming program. Do you have one hotel in a market that is significantly more expensive than others? Review your current program to determine if you have the right mix of hotels.
Interested in the full Advito Travel Price Index Report? Reach out to your Consultant today. Not an Advito client? Get in touch with us, we’re ready to help you elevate your travel program.