Skyscanner Shares Saudi Travel Insights During Foundation Day
Global travel marketplace Skyscanner highlights the top searched destinations by Saudi travelers during Foundation Day.
Travel searches for the week of Foundation Day 2023 are up +83% compared to 2022. Furthermore, booking windows for flights in February also see an increase compared to 2022, suggesting a return to pre-pandemic booking windows as consumer confidence continues to grow and travelers book flights earlier.
Travel searches within the GCC – Top 3:
- Saudi Arabia (+98% compared to 2022).
- UAE (+99 compared to 2022).
- Qatar (+2094% increase compared to 2022).
International travel searches – Top 5:
- Egypt (+19% increase compared to 2022).
- Morocco (+41% increase compared to 2022).
- India (+83% increase compared to 2022).
- “Everywhere” Search (+497% increase compared to 2022), which indicates KSA travelers are considering prices and being flexible about which destinations to visit.
- Pakistan (+57% increase compared to 2022).
Flight bookings made more than 30 days before departure in February 2023 are up 7% compared to 2022, whilst flight bookings made less than 30 days before departure are down 6% from the previous year.
Currently, the overall best time to book flights from Saudi Arabia is on average 21 weeks before departure, and the cheapest day of the week to travel from Saudi Arabia is a Sunday. However, the global travel site has data crunched millions of flight bookings over the last year across its most popular destinations, and the results reveal this does not in fact tell the whole story.
Not only do these hacks change depending on the destination but also, travelers will find differing results for the same destination but a different month, i.e.:
- From Jeddah, the cheapest day of the week to travel to London in August is Tuesday vs. from Riyadh, which is Thursday.
- The best time to book a flight from Riyadh to Dubai in December is 12 weeks ahead vs. from Abu Dhabi to London, which is 23 weeks.
- The cheapest day of the week to travel to Bangkok from Riyadh in March is a Monday, but in June, it is a Wednesday.
