Mediterranean hotspots – including Cyprus, Croatia, Greece and Albania – have recovered to pre-Covid levels of tourist business, according to a new report.
Leading travel intelligence provider Mabrian has published an analysis that reveals the air connectivity evolution and hotel prices for south-east Europe – including countries such as Croatia, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece, Slovenia and Albania.
Looking at data for the full 2023 year vs 2019 for air capacity and for the period up to 16 August vs 2022 for hotels*, the analysis aims to help destinations in the region make informed decisions based on real-time data to manage tourism in a more efficient and sustainable way.
Key take-aways from the analysis include:
- Croatia, Cyprus, Greece and Albania have overtaken 2019 figures for air capacity.
- The primary growth comes from international flights, which confirms that international travel will continue to recover during 2023.
- Croatia’s air capacity of 7.1m seats is up by 16.1%, mostly driven by a 57% increase in capacity with Italy.
- Albania stands out with an increase of 75% in international flights compared to 2019, helped by a 278% increase in connectivity with Germany.
- Bulgaria is getting very close to the air capacity volumes of 2019, with better signs of recovery for international flights than for domestic.
- Slovenia still needs to recover air connectivity, with scheduled flights representing just 58% of 2019 levels.
- Meanwhile hotel rates continue to go up for almost all destinations across all three of the different star categories.
- The destinations with the highest increases in prices Vs 2022 are Bulgaria and Croatia.
- Albania is the only exception, with prices 4.1% below 2022 levels for 4-star hotels (but up 6.3% for both 3- and 5-star hotels).
Anna Borduzha, VP of Business Development at Mabrian, comments: “Knowledge is power and with these insights destinations in South East Europe can now begin safely preparing summer campaigns that focus on the source markets that really can deliver them visitors and avoiding those that can’t – as in many cases their typical visitor profile will now be quite different from 2019.”
Mabrian has published this analysis ahead of the annual New Deal Europe event – the only travel trade marketplace for tour operators and tourism organisations focused on the 12 destinations of Southeast Europe – that will take place on 28th March in London.
