The correlation between the announcement of relaxed travel restrictions and bookings is also dramatically demonstrated by flight tickets issued from the USA to Iceland.

On 26^th March, its government announced that all vaccinated travelers would be exempt from entry restrictions and the level of issued tickets soared to 158% of what they were during the equivalent week in 2019.

The correlation between vaccination rates and outbound travel is strong, as consumers gain confidence. Bookings to Europe from Israel, which has vaccinated over 60% of its population, are currently at 63% of 2019 levels and bookings from the UK, which has vaccinated over 52%, are at 32% of 2019 levels.

Vaccinations appear to hold the key to reviving international travel, as countries that make clear promises to welcome vaccinated travelers are being rewarded by strong surges in flight bookings. The industry is seeing a revival of confidence in outbound travel from countries where there has been a successful rollout of COVID-19 vaccines too.

From a commercial perspective, the outlook is likely to be a little better than the numbers portray because travelers are booking longer durations. Furthermore, if restrictions are eased in both origin markets and destinations, there are grounds for further optimism because there is strong pent-up demand and, during the pandemic, people have shown themselves willing to make bookings at significantly shorter notice than they used to.