GlobalData released its most recent report on global travel and tourism deal activity, noting a 10.4 percent year-on-year decrease in merger and acquisition activities.

The report showed a total of 583 deals announced in the travel and tourism sector between January and October 2024.

This marked a year-over-year decline compared to the 651 deals announced during the same period in 2023

According to GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose: “Geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainties significantly impacted the deal-making in the travel and tourism sector. However, some of the leading economies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region saw improvement in the volume of deals.”

Key findings

Europe led in the number of deal announcements during January-October 2024 while also showing a YoY improvement of 7.5 percent in deal activity.

In contrast, North America, Asia-Pacific, South and Central America, as well as the Middle East and Africa regions saw YoY decline in deal volume by 33 percent, 6.4 percent, 20 percent, and 17.2%, respectively, during January-October 2024.

In contrast, the UK, India, Japan and Spain experienced YoY improvement in deal volume by 2.7 percent, 18.6 percent, 28.6 percent, and 69.2 percent respectively from January to October 2024.

An analysis of GlobalData’s Deals Database revealed that trend also remained a mixed bag across different deal types.

The deal volume for mergers and acquisitions, as well as venture financing deals fell by 4.9 percent and 29.4 percent respectively during the period compared to the same timeframe last year.

Meanwhile, the private equity deals volume saw a slight improvement during the review period.