Swedes give up fall holiday travel

Image: Joan Mateu

Unusually many have spent their summer holidays in Sweden this year. It looks like the trend will continue during the fall holidays, which this year fall from October 26-30.

Charter airline Tui estimates that fall travel sales will likely reach 10-20 percent of what is sold during a “normal fall.”

– This also applies to the fall holidays. In principle, only trips to the Canary Islands and Mallorca will be offered, says Adam Györki, press director at Tui Sweden.

– But we are prepared to receive significantly more travelers if there is demand, he adds.

Tui isn’t the only one to point out the low interest in travel during the fall break.

The search service flygresor. Collected searches for flights during the fall holiday week, which ran between June 1 and September 2. The results show that the number of searches has dropped dramatically. Last year, just under 646,400 searches were performed in the 20 most searched destinations. This year, searches stood at just over 80,725, corresponding to an 87 percent decrease.

The change is undoubtedly substantial, but not very shocking, according to Sofi Cederlöf, marketing manager at flygresor.se.

Given the situation with the corona pandemic and various travel restrictions, it’s not surprising. Given that the Foreign Ministry has extended the travel advisory until mid-November for countries outside the EU, it is not so strange that they do not seek travel to destinations in those countries, he says.

– The spread of the infection has also increased again in several countries, which probably means that you should be careful not to go to those areas.

Compared to last year, the list of the 20 most wanted destinations has changed.

This year, Spain, Thailand and Turkey top the list, which has received just over 28,100, 9,200 and 6,500 searches, respectively.

Last year, the list was led by Spain, followed by the United States and Thailand, and then with significantly more searches. Just over 200,000 trips were requested to Spain, more than 75,700 to the United States and just under 49,200 to Thailand.

Egypt, Iran and the Maldives have been added to the list, while the Czech Republic, Australia and Morocco are no longer in the top 20 most searched destinations.

– This change probably depends on how the situation of the crown is seen between different countries and how difficult it is to get there, says Sofi Cederlöf.

– How search behavior develops in air travel is entirely dependent on how the crown situation develops both in Sweden and in the rest of the world.