The overwhelming majority of the packages, round 86 %, have been to Europe. Among European locations, Greece was the highest vacation spot with properly over 184,000 packages, accounting for 41.5 % of all journey packages to the area.
The warfare that began in Europe in February 2022, the ensuing power and financial disaster and the nonetheless lingering Covid-19 pandemic are components that, whilst particular person phenomena, would create challenges for the journey business. However, the sector, which had been surviving the pandemic on the again of home tourism, was given a breather in spring 2022, when worldwide journey from Finland to overseas and from overseas to Finland lastly took off. Although gross sales have been nonetheless lagging behind the pre-pandemic degree on the finish of the 12 months, the scenario within the journey business was higher than may have been anticipated given the challenges of the working setting.
The Association of Finnish Travel Industry (SMAL) has compiled the normal package deal travel¹ statistics, that includes flight-based packages from Finland to worldwide locations in 2022 offered by its member corporations. Overall, simply over 518,000 packages have been offered which has a rise of 344 % in comparison with 2021. However, there was nonetheless a 41 % drop in package deal gross sales in comparison with the pre-pandemic interval. In 2022, the mixed turnover of tour operators organizing flight-based journey packages was 494.7 million euros, a rise of 374 % in comparison with the earlier 12 months. In 2019, the corresponding determine was 755.6 million euros, a drop of 34,5 % in 2022 in comparison with the pre-pandemic interval.
The overwhelming majority of the packages, round 86 %, have been to Europe. Among European locations, Greece was the highest vacation spot with properly over 184,000 packages, accounting for 41.5 % of all journey packages to the area. The progress in journey to Greece in comparison with 2021 was 410 %, though there was nonetheless a 23 % drop in comparison with 2019. The second favourite vacation spot for Finns was Spain, with just below 144,000 packages. This was simply over 32 % of all packages to Europe. The Canary Islands accounted for almost all of packages to Spain amounting over 120,000 journeys. Compared to 2021, the expansion in journey to Spain was 199 %. However, in comparison with 2019, the drop in journey to Spain was nonetheless 38 %.
Some 48,000 journey packages have been made to locations within the Middle East and North Africa, accounting for greater than 9 % of all statistical packages. Sales to Middle East and North Africa locations elevated by 542 % in comparison with 2021, though there was nonetheless a decline of round 57 % in comparison with the pre-pandemic interval. Turkey is a long-standing favourite of Finnish travelersin the area, with round 39,000 package-holiday vacationers going there in 2022, accounting for 81 % of all gross sales within the area. Around 3,800 vacationers went to the United Arab Emirates and round 3,200 to Egypt.
Some 25 000 journey packages have been made to long-haul locations, a rise of 432 % in comparison with 2021. The drop in long-haul gross sales was nonetheless 71 % of the 2019 package deal journey quantity. Cabo Verde was the most well-liked long-haul vacation spot, with round 8,800 journeys, or over 35 % of journeys to the area. Travel to Thailand was solely free of all pandemic-related journey restrictions ultimately of the 12 months, that means that solely round 7,500 journey packages to the normal primary vacation spot for Finns could possibly be made throughout 2022.
The reputation of lengthy worldwide cruises was rising properly amongst Finns earlier than the pandemic. In 2022, round 3 700 cruise packages have been offered. The majority of those have been European cruises. Cruise gross sales grew by 313 % in comparison with 2021, though there was a drop of greater than 53 % in comparison with 2019. It is value mentioning, nonetheless, that the figures above are offered by tour operators and don’t depend journeys booked by vacationers immediately with the cruise corporations.
Top 10 listing of Destinations in 2022
| 2022 order | 2019 order | Trips taken in 2022 |
| 1. Greece | (1.) | 184.476 |
| 2. Spain | (2.) | 184.476 |
| 3. Turkey | (3.) | 39.243 |
| 4. Cyprus | (8.) | 20.533 |
| 5. Portugal | (7.) | 19.235 |
| 6. Italy | (5.) | 18.242 |
| 7. Croatia | (6.) | 11.867 |
| 8. Cabo Verde | (-) | 8.825 |
| 9. Austria | (-) | 8.065 |
| 10. Thailand | (4.) | 7.579 |
On the statistics
SMAL and its predecessor SMY have gathered statistics on package deal journey since 1965. The journey business has modified significantly since these occasions. The package deal journey idea has modified types over time and conventional package deal journey holidays are increasingly more incessantly joined by flight+lodge or comparable preparations
which are booked on-line. These are additionally thought-about package deal journey. Travelers more and more additionally e-book their very own tailormade journeys in accordance with their very own wishes. These journeys at the moment are extra typically included within the statistics on package deal journey as properly, since 2018 laws on package deal journey added different varieties of journey to the statistics as properly.
A majority of the figures are based mostly on the gross sales of package deal journey holidays which are produced serially. For this purpose, well-liked European metropolis locations, as an example, will not be represented within the appropriate proportion within the statistics.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network the place she is the Editor-in Chief. She can be liable for the day by day operation and the monetary coverage. She holds a Bachelor’s diploma in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has a few years of each educational and industrial expertise inside the journey business. She has written/edited quite a few articles in varied tourism magazines.