A new report from Amadeus has revealed a positive trend for air travel and hospitality in the Americas at the start of 2024.

The report – Travel Insights 2024: Focus on the Americas – finds the industry is prepared for a strong start to the year, with air capacity in the region up by 20 per cent over the first four months of the year when compared to the same period of 2023.

Released today in collaboration with the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), the report draws on Amadeus’ global travel data to provide a comprehensive overview of forward-looking travel industry insights.

It takes a deeper look at the Americas to help destinations and travel providers better comprehend travel performance and insights into travelers seeking to travel to the region.

These insights can help destinations to anticipate shifts in traveler patterns and trends, ultimately creating strategies that capture more traveler interest to support tourism and economic growth for their destination.

For the Americas, the report notes that as of January 8th, Amadeus search and booking analytics shows North America capturing the greatest volume of activity across the subregions with New York, Cancun and Los Angeles leading the list of top searched destinations.

Additionally, Amadeus’ Demand360+ data shows hotel demand remains strong across North America with forward-looking occupancy in each of the first four months of the year on par with 2023 occupancy for the same time period, even in the context of shorter booking lead times with 51 per cent of hotel reservations being made within a week of travel.

In addition to detailing performance across each of the Americas’ four subregions, North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean, the report looks into traveler behaviours by origin market.

Using Amadeus data on available air capacity to each region also provides context of how many travelers could enter each destination along with the best window of time to capture interest as they are planning and booking trips.

Putting these details together allows destinations to gain a better understanding of global travel movement, how regions and markets are performing, and how to capture opportunities ahead.

The top three markets searching for travel to the US are domestic travel, followed by Canada and the UK.

It is also interesting to note that Argentina is growing in importance as a key origin market for US travel with a 159 per cent increase in year-over-year search volumes.

The USA is the top country of origin exploring travel to South and Central America as well as to the Caribbean by a significant margin, with cities such as New York, LA and Toronto leading the searches.

Europe is also a key origin region, with Spain and Germany in the top three countries searching for South and Central America respectively.

Hotel occupancy performance in the Americas is closely aligned with 2023 with small differences among subregions.

Francisco Pérez-Lozao Rüter, president, hospitality, Amadeus, said: “Access to insights across the global travel ecosystem provides a new perspective into traveler behaviours.

“We are excited to partner with the UNWTO – enabling destinations and travel providers alike to plan for the future.

“The past few years have accelerated the adoption of technology to make the experience of travel better, smoother, and faster, creating greater accessibility and opportunity to connect the world.”