Global travel marketplace Skyscanner highlights the top searched destinations by Saudi travellers during Foundation Day. The booking windows for flights in February also saw an increase compared to 2022, suggesting a return to pre-pandemic booking windows – as consumer confidence continues to grow and travellers tend to book their flights earlier.
Travel searches within the GCC – top 3:
1. Saudi Arabia (+98% compared to the previous year)
2. UAE (+99 compared to the previous year)
3. Qatar (+2094% increase compared to the previous year)
International travel searches – top 5
1. Egypt (+19% increase compared to the previous year)
2. Morocco (+41% increase compared to the previous year)
3. India (+83% increase compared to the previous year)
4. ‘Everywhere’ search (+497% increase compared to the previous year) indicates KSA travellers are considering prices and being flexible about their destinations to visit.
5. Pakistan (+57% increase compared to the previous year)
Flight bookings made more than 30 days before departure in February 2023 are up 7% compared to 2022, while flights made less than 30 days before departure are down 6% from the previous year.
Discover the best time to book using Skyscanner’s new Savings Generator
Travellers looking for guidance on how to make their money go further can visit Skyscanner’s 2023 Savings Generator, which shows the best time to book for the top 15 most popular departure airports and destination pairings.
Currently, the 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 only tells part of the story. Not only do these hacks change depending on the destination but also, travellers will find differing results for the same destination but a different month, which are:
· From Jeddah, the cheapest day of the week to travel to London in August is a Tuesday from Riyadh, which is a 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.