2020 was the year when international travel was at a standstill. But that doesn't mean Swedes stayed home. While few people crossed national borders, Swedes made an average of ten leisure trips within the country. This is shown by this year's edition of the Travel Barometer.
Last year, Swedes' holiday trips abroad decreased by 84 percent. From 12 to 1.9 million leisure trips.
Not since World War II has the decline been as dramatic. Travel has previously declined in individual years, most recently in connection with the financial crisis in the 2000s, but then by a few percent, only to skyrocket again. Last year's decline in travel is therefore historic.
The travel barometer is conducted by Resurs för resor og turism for Resemagasinate Vagabond, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (UD) and Europeiska ERV and is Sweden's largest travel habits survey. Just over 2,000 people answered questions about their trips abroad, while just over 4,300 answered questions about their trips to Sweden.
The vast majority of Swedes never left the country in 2020, not even since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' travel advice for European travel was lifted. In the vast majority of cases, we took the safe route before the unsafe and ... no, we did not stay at home completely, but instead we vacationed in Sweden. Last year, we made 29 million vacation trips with at least one overnight stay and 50 million day trips. Or put differently: on average, each adult Swede made 3.5 overnight trips to Sweden and 6.1 day trips.
In 2018, 35 percent said they would take fewer leisure trips abroad in the future. In 2019, the proportion planning to start a ”travel diet” had dropped to 27 percent, only to shrink to 14 percent in the corona year 2020. A majority – or 86 percent – therefore have no plans to travel less after than they did before the pandemic. Instead, 10 percent say they will increase their international travel. In short, it can be said that flight shame has decreased because the desire to travel has increased.
Foreign trips in the last four years:
| Year | Number of trips |
| 2017 | 11.6 million |
| 2018 | 11 million |
| 2019 | 12 million |
| 2020 | 1.9 million |
Top 5 – so many trips we made from Sweden to:
| Country (ranking 2019) | 2020 | 2019 | Change |
| 1. Spain (1) | 298 000 | 1 827 000 | –84 % |
| 2. Denmark (2) | 161 000 | 1 136 000 | –86 % |
| 3. Finland (6) | 112 000 | 633 000 | –83 % |
| 4. Germany (3) | 106 000 | 899 000 | –88 % |
| 5. Thailand (17) | 76 000 | 208 000 | –64% |
Source:vagabond
