European Travel on the Rise Thanks to Strong Dollar

Several European cities are seeing triple-digit increases in holiday season visitors when compared to 2019 numbers. Popular cities in Portugal, Greece, Denmark and Sweden are all benefitting from a strong U.S. dollar, according to a report from Allianz Partners USA, which reviewed more than 608,000 travel itineraries planned between November 23, 2022 and January 5, 2023.

“While inflation has caused the prices of almost everything to soar, travelers have seen the value of the dollar also surge, gain parity with the Euro and the pound, and boost their holiday budgets,” said Daniel Durazo, director of external communications at Allianz Partners USA.

The top five European holiday destinations, according to the Allianz Partners 2022 European Holiday Destination Index, are London, Paris, Madrid, Rome and Amsterdam. Each will see more visitors this holiday season than in 2019/2020, by +20%, +13%, +7%, +35%, and + 4%, respectively.

The cities seeing the greatest increase over 2019/2020 numbers are Lisbon (+173%), Stockholm (+160%), Athens (+154%), Copenhagen (+144%), and Edinburgh and Dublin (both +76%).

Barcelona is one of the few cities that continues to see fewer visitors, this year down by -12%, though it will still be the seventh most visited city this holiday season.