The Most Visited Destinations in 2022

ForwardKeys has announced the performance of the top global destinations of 2022 by publishing an annual Most Visited Destinations report that is available in hard copy at the event and to download at the bottom of this page.

The top country list is headed by the Dominican Republic, and the top city list by Antalya in Turkey. Between 1^st January and 18^th October (the latest available air ticketing data), the Dominican Republic welcomed 5% more visitors than it did in 2019. It is followed by Turkey, Costa Rica, and Mexico, which all welcomed the same number of visitors.

Although Russia’s invasion of Ukraine massively impacted travel to and from Russia, as numerous countries imposed bans on direct flights, it has not caused long-haul travel to Europe to decline as much as one might have expected prior to the pandemic. Travel to Southern Europe, especially to Greece, down 12%, Portugal, down16%, and Turkey, flat, and to Iceland, down 14%, has held up well. However, ForwardKeys expects that second-order consequences of the war, such as rising fuel prices and inflation, will have a delaying effect on travel recovery.

The Asia Pacific region, which has been characterised by stiffer travel restrictions, most notably in China with its Zero Covid policy, has, at last, started to recover. There, people travelling to visit friends and relatives has been the driver, with Pakistan and Bangladesh just 5% and 8% down on 2019 levels. Leisure travel to the Maldives, down 7%, and Fiji, down 22%, both tropical island paradises, also held up well.

Among top most visited destination cities, the best performer is Antalya, the largest city on the Turkish riviera, which has welcomed 66% more visitors than it did in the equivalent period in in 2019. It is followed by San Jose Cabo (MX), up 21%, Puerto Vallarta (MX), up 13%, Punta Cana (DO), up 12%, San Salvador (SV), up 10%, Cancun (MX), up 9%, Lahore (PK), up 4%, Aruba (AW), up 3%, Montego Bay (JM), flat, and Islamabad (PK), down 1%.

The extraordinary performance of Antalya was helped by a few factors, most notably the weakness of the Turkish lira and the policy of the Turkish government to remain relatively open to tourism during the pandemic and to continue welcoming Russian visitors.