Oh, 2019. You rollercoaster of a year. Whether we were celebrating a certain women’s soccer team’s dominance in France or trying to convert USD to whatever Greenland’s currency is, there were events this year that forged new paths in defining travel trends. We dug into our data to pull out those moments that made all the difference. Check out how 2019 landed for travelers:
Stuck at work without headphones? No worries, we’ll break it down for you:
Selectivity is sexy: Travelers were over being basic (economy, that is). Searches for premium economy were up 25% this year.
Beach, please: Airfare to Hawaii dropped to an all-time affordable price with median airfare down 13% since 2017. St. Lucia popped as the #1 overall trending destination for 2019 with searches up 200+%.
Nuclear hotspot?: Searches to Kiev, Ukraine went up 18% since the hit show about Chernobyl took over our TVs.
USA! USA!: Median airfare between the US and France increased seven percent during the big women’s soccer tournament in June/July.
New to the scene: Nuuk, Greenland saw a spike in travel interest up 29% following an infamous POTUS tweet.
Comeback of the year: The Caribbean, following destruction from the hurricanes in 2017, saw its popularity turn around as a tourist destination with search interest up 11% this year.
The Griswolds got it right: Europe is still cheap with median airfare hovering around $740 in 2019.
Press hits pack a punch: The Dominican Republic took a hit in June with searches down 19%, but ended up bouncing back a couple months later.
Keepin’ it thrifty: Looking at median airfare, here’s a taste of the cheapest places to fly to this year:
- North America: Trenton, NJ – $143 (listen, we just report what the data shows)
- Caribbean: Aguadilla, Puerto Rico – $300
- Central America: San Jose, Costa Rica – $442
- South America: Cartagena, Colombia – $494
- Europe: Reykjavik, Iceland – $549
- Asia: Shenzhen, China – $698
- Africa: Algiers, Algeria – $880
- South Pacific: Sydney, Australia – $972
So, how many of these travel trends did you hit? Whether you were one of the dark tourism enthusiasts heading to Ukraine or the reason why St. Lucia is feeling all the love, track your trips on KAYAK Trips. Besides being a great way to organize itineraries on- and offline, Trips gives you personalized trip stats so you can see how far you’ve gone. Here’s to 2020!
Methodology:
Data is based on median airfare found on KAYAK.com and is intended to be used as a guide. Search dates considered are January 1, 2019 to October 8, 2019 for travel January 1, 2019 – December 31, 2019. To compare year-over-year findings, KAYAK considered searches from January 1, 2018 to October 8, 2018 for travel January 1, 2018 – December 31, 2018. Change in airfare to Hawaii was found by considering changes in airfare over last 4 years. Data for Kiev, Ukraine compares search dates of January 1, 2019 through May 5 2019 to search dates of May 6, 2019 through June 12, 2019 (for travel January 1, 2019 through June 30, 2020).
