The slowdown in deals activity in travel and tourism continued in the first quarter of the current year, with China seeing the worst declines, says a report by GlobalData.

With 165 deals globally in the first quarter of 2024, the mergers and acquisition activity in travel and tourism industry has seen a decline of 14.9 pc, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

In a press statement, GlobalData says that in the same period of 2023, a total of 194 deals had been announced. According to GlobalData, the decline was witnessed almost all across the world, though there were national and regional variations in the level of decline.

It says that while North America witnessed a decline of 26.2 pc, Europe experienced 12.3 pc decline during Q1 2024 compared to Q1 2023. Similarly, South and Central America and Middle East and African regions also witnessed decline in deals volume during Q1 2024. Meanwhile, deals volume for the Asia-Pacific region remained mostly flat.

Several key markets across all the regions experienced subdued deal activity. For instance, the United States saw its Q1 deal activity decline by 21.7 pc, the United Kingdom a drop of 30 pc, and France saw volumes decline by 27.3 pc. Japan, too, had a similar range of decline at 28.6 pc, but China saw the worst decline, as M&A deal activity in the country fell by 66.7 pc.

“The decline in North America and Europe, which collectively accounted for around two-thirds of the total number of deals announced globally during Q1 2024, primarily drove the overall decline in deals volume,” says Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData.

The statement adds that an analysis of GlobalData’s Deals Database revealed that the deal volume for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and venture financing deals declined by 14.2 pc, and 29.2 pc during Q1 2024 compared to Q1 2023 whereas the number of private equity deals registered some improvement.