Domestic travel is surging in 2026: What hotel search data across the G20 tells us

For many major markets, the 2026 summer season is being shaped by staycations and domestic travel.

Consumers dealing with inflation, shrinking disposable income and geopolitical instability are looking closer to home according to Lighthouse data and third-party sources.

Across G20 countries in Q1 2026, the share of searches for hotels made via Online Travel Agency (OTA) and metasearch platforms from domestic sources expanded by 3 percentage points Year-on-Year (YoY).

This trend appears to be accelerating into Q2, and is markedly more noticeable in wealthier markets, with North America seeing the fastest shift.

For hotels, the implication goes beyond marketing and segmentation strategies. Revenue management approaches need adjusting too, because alongside the move toward domestic and short-haul travel, spend per trip is also declining.

Note: This analysis covers G20 countries excluding Russia which is under sanctions and China which has its own separate digital ecosystem.

Key takeaways

• The share of G20 consumers searching for hotels in their own country rose 3.4 percentage points YoY in Q1, from 54.1% to 57.5%. By April 2026, 60% of G20 hotel searches were domestic.

• North America is seeing the biggest shift: domestic search share rose 7% in the US, 10% in Canada and 13% in Mexico YoY in Q1 2026, despite all three countries hosting FIFA World Cup games.

• ETC data confirms declining long-haul travel intent across every surveyed market, with a 5% YoY increase in respondents reporting no intention to travel long-haul.

• Spend per trip is falling too: the share of European travellers budgeting over €1,500 dropped nine points YoY, and the booking window and average stay length continue to shrink.

Domestic hotel search share is rising across the G20

Across the data there is a subtle, but increasingly clear, trend towards domestic travel and short-haul locations.

We pulled country-by-country and regional data on the share of hotel searches made on OTA and metasearch sites originating from within each country, or from within the same region.

On both a country and a regional level, internal search share has risen in early 2026 and appears to still be climbing into Q2.

Taking an average across all countries in the analysis, the share of consumers searching for hotels in their own country rose 3.4 percentage points YoY, from 54.1% in Q1 2025 to 57.5% in Q1 2026.

Intra-regional searches for hotels also increased across the same period, although by a more modest 2 percentage points to an 84.9% share.

The trend also appears to be accelerating. In the early weeks of Q2 2026, domestic and regional search volumes are running noticeably ahead of 2025 and 2024.

By April 2026, an average of 60% of G20 hotel searches were for properties in the searcher’s own country.

European Travel Commission (ETC) data is aligned with this change. Its Q1 Long Haul Travel Barometer found a decline in intention to take long-haul trips in every single one of the seven countries surveyed. Overall, there was a 5% YoY increase in respondents reporting no intention to travel long-haul.

ETC data that looks at just European travel consumers from March 2026 also showed intent shifting toward more localized travel. YoY there was a 4% increase in those saying they expect their next trip to be within Europe, and a 2% fall in those saying they intend to go outside the continent.

Wealthier markets are leading the shift, with North America furthest ahead

These percentage changes look modest in isolation, but at aggregate level they represent millions of trips shifting to domestic and short-haul destinations. They also mask significant variation at country level, with wealthier markets showing the largest increases in domestic search share.

Australia, France, Japan, Turkey and the UK were all locations where the share of searches made internally rose by 5% or more YoY in Q1 2026 - with Turkey and the UK showing 9.2% and 6.8% positive increases in the share of domestic hotel queries.

But all of these fall behind North America, where the biggest shift is underway.

The share of domestic hotel searches has risen 7% YoY in Q1 in the US, 10% in Canada, and 13% in Mexico. The average share of searches made from each country’s consumers stood at 74% in the US, 69% in Canada and 57% in Mexico in Q1 2026.

The US Travel Association (USTA) noted that domestic travel and international travel were already heading in opposite directions in 2025, with domestic leisure travel spending up 2.1%, but international spend contracting 2.4%, while international visits declined 5.5%, led by a 21% decline in Canadian visitors.

Lighthouse and ETC data suggest there’s little reason to expect a major bounceback. The ETC found that the share planning not to travel long haul had risen 7% YoY in Canada, with a 10% decline in the US since 2024.

Beyond North America, Visit Britain estimated that domestic tourism spending rose 11% YoY in Q3 2025, and Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Tourism noted a 16% leap in domestic visitors in Q1 2026.

In contrast, Brazil and South Africa experienced declines in the share of domestic searches made in Q1 2026, with the World Tourism Barometer noting that travel to Brazil grew by a world-leading 37% in 2025.

Closely linked intra-regional travel is also seeing a boost, most notably in Southern Europe and Northeast Asia. These are regions with reliable, low-cost flight connectivity and strong perceptions of safety. This results in growing demand for destinations like France, Greece and Turkey in Europe, and Japan and South Korea in east Asia.

The ETC survey of European travelers found a 17% upsurge in those intending to travel to Southern and Mediterranean Europe for their next trip, which likely explains why France and Turkey have seen notable changes in the share of searches made from travelers in European countries.

In Q1 2026, there was a leap of 6.4% YoY in regional searches for France and 7.8% for Turkey. French Q1 overnight stay data provides further detail: the number of overnight stays from the US declined 0.6%, as did those from Asia and Oceania by 1.3%, but stays from German and British visitors soared 8.7% and 8.2%, respectively.

In Northeast Asia, South Korea’s decline in the share of hotel searches made by South Koreans (-3.6%) appears to be explained largely by the soaring popularity of the destination for regional travelers, rather than any decline in domestic tourism. Visitor numbers in March set records, with arrivals from China, Taiwan, and Japan climbing 29%, 37.7% and 20.2% YoY, followed by increases of 29.6%, 27.2%, and 17.9% in April.

Heading the other way, South Korean tourism into Japan is also on a steep upward path, rising 21.6%, 28.2%, and 15% YoY in January, February, and March, respectively, while Taiwanese inbound visits similarly grew by 17%, 36.7%, and 24.9% across these months. Chinese visits were the outlier, declining 55.9% in March. That drop stems from a diplomatic dispute between Beijing and Tokyo that started in late 2025; without it, the growth trend would likely have continued.

Shorter, cheaper trips are becoming the norm for travelers

The domestic shift isn’t the only signal. Ahead of this summer’s peak season, other trends point to a more cautious, budget-conscious traveller.

We have already noted in previous research that the booking window is becoming shorter, as is the average stay, which is part of a move toward less per-trip expenditure. ETC data for Europe found that the share expecting to stay six nights or fewer rose 5% YoY in Q1, while estimated budgets declined, as the percentage anticipating a trip spend of more than €1,500 fell nine points.

Another indicator is the more cautious accommodation pricing strategies being enacted for Q2 2026, with half of tracked destinations in Lighthouse data showing a decline in advertised prices, compared to the same point in 2025, when rates were heading upward in two-thirds of locations.

Across the wider consumer economy, spending patterns are shifting fast. Travel is no exception.

At the same time, airlines have been forced to respond to the conflict in the Middle East, with Middle Eastern carriers cutting capacity and raising fares, which impacts key long-haul routes the most. Add a more cost-conscious, security-aware traveller to that picture, and the conditions for a major shift in summer travel patterns are clear.

Hotels that rely on last year’s booking patterns as a guide for this summer will be caught off guard. If you haven’t already, now is the time to adapt a commercial strategy that evaluates demand based on forward-looking search signals.

This enables you to make proactive revenue management adjustments for shorter stays and smaller budgets. You can tailor marketing and promotional offer creation to target domestic and regional travellers and reassess where advertising spend is going given the decline in long-haul inbound demand.

Lighthouse captures over 1.2 billion flight and hotel searches and 1.7 billion hotel rates every day. That’s the data behind the analysis in this post.

It’s the same data you can use to track how your market is evolving, where demand is coming from and when.