One International Destination Is Trending Higher for Americans Traveling this Holiday Season

There’s a new most trending international destination for Americans traveling this holiday season, according to new data from Allianz Partners USA, which released the results from its Top 10 Holidays Destinations survey this week.

Allianz compiled data from almost 3 million different itineraries built by consumers via OTAs or advisors. The rankings are based on roundtrip flights departing from U.S. airports from Dec. 17 through Dec. 29.

Domestic travel is still dominating the plans of Americans who are traveling this holiday season—89% of those itineraries are for other U.S. destinations—and the cities that usually appear at the top of the list are back again in 2022 with New York ranking first followed by Seattle, Orlando, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. The only change from 2021 is that Phoenix has passed Los Angles as the fourth most popular domestic destination for 2022.

The big changes in the survey come from international travel, which, while a less popular choice for Americans during the holiday season, still represents 11% of those 3 million itineraries.

While the top two most popular international destinations remain the same for Americans (Cancun and San Jose Del Cabo), the third most popular is a surprise, Allianz director of external communications Daniel Durazo told TMR this week.

London, for the first time since the survey’s inception in 2015 when it was ranked the number one international destination for U.S. holiday travelers, ranked third in this year’s survey, which shows that the appetite for European travel is still high amongst Americans.

There are a number of factors that could go into that trend. London was popular amongst Americans in the spring—Durazo told TMR that Allianz data for summer travel for consumers looking in the Spring showed London up 600%.

A strong U.S. dollar has made those trips more affordable for Americans despite rising prices and persistent inflation. There’s also a sense that Americans, who were largely unable to travel to Europe during the early stages of the pandemic, are still hungry to get to London after missing out on the opportunity to do so.

Overall, outside of the specifics, searches for winter holiday plans are up 17% compared to 2021, which is another good sign for the continued recovery of the U.S. travel industry.