Here at Tnooz we love beautiful, effective, and informative data visualizations about travel.
Large sets of numbers become more intuitive to grasp and manipulate when plotted in map form.
Case in point: Global Gateways, a projection of first-of-its kind data on the flow of international passengers in and out airports worldwide.
It was created by the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., and it uses data from a variety of industry and governmental sources to paint a picture of how air passenger traffic flows.
Change the map view to see air traffic patterns for different regions of the world, such as Europe or Oceania, and routes from specific airports.
A quick look shows that the fastest-growing corridors are to emerging metropolitan economies, such as Shanghai and Sao Paulo. It also illustrates significant growth in overseas travel from major US metropolitan areas.
The nifty interactive feature—which is sadly not embeddable or easily shared online—does reveal trends worldwide. But it accompanies a report that focuses on the US. Specifically, it criticizes the country's response to the growth in global air passenger traffic.
A scholar at Brookings, economist Cliff Winston, wants the US government to open up domestic routes to foreign carriers and allow foreign carriers to own domestic airlines. This view is controversial.
But even if you're not interested in the report or the politics behind it, the data visualization might inspire you to better understand industry trends and perhaps create one of your own on your own favorite topic.
For a video quickly explaining the report (which bizarrely forgets to show off the data visualization), see below: