The Tourism Sales Climate Index – March 2019

The mood in travel sales was rather negative at the beginning of the year but mow optimism is showing up in March. Travel agencies think more positively about the current situation than in the previous month and expectations for the coming months are also better.

Current situation

33.3% of the participating travel agencies rated the current situation in the distribution of travel services as good. After all, just a little less than one half (47.4%) of the travel agencies surveyed still rate the current sales situation as satisfactory. In the previous month it was only 44%. The number of respondents who perceived the current situation as bad also decreased in March from 24.1% to 19.3%.

For more than a quarter (26.8%) of respondents, travel services sales have increased in the last 2-3 months compared to the previous year and only 44.6% (previous month: 47.4%) show a decline in booked travel services.

Future situation

Cautious optimism is also shown by 25.4% of respondents who expect the demand to rise in the next 6 months compared to last year. Nearly half (50.9%) of the participants expect that the demand will not change over the next few months compared to the previous year. 23.7% of respondents (29.9% in the previous month) expect a decline in the demand.

The future earnings situation is rated as stable by 43.8% of respondents. Although a relevant number of respondents (34.8%) still expects decline in the earnings situation, their share has decreased by 4 percentage points. However, 21.4% of the respondents expect an improvement in the earnings situation.

Although the tourism sales climate index is still at an overall low level compared to the previous year, the mood is brightening up again. For the first time in four months, the sales climate index recorded an increase in the overall curve.

In March 2019, 114 travel agencies (117 random samples in the previous month) gave their ratings.