The Extraordinary Travel Festival and Atlântico Business School have launched the Magellan Travel Index to measure travel achievements.
The index tracks both quantity of travel, measured by how many regions travellers explore, and quality of travel, determined by the UNESCO sites, capitals, and borders visited.
“It not only celebrates the legacies of historical explorers but also shines a spotlight on the extraordinary achievements of today’s global travellers. This index is a tool to inspire and challenge adventurers around the world,” said Extraordinary Travel Festival founder Ric Gazarian.
According to the Extraordinary Travel Festival, “the index aims to serve as a guideline for assessing the quality of travel for those who wish to explore the largest number of regions on the planet.”
To measure the number of regions visited, the index uses information from travellers’ memberships in major travel clubs Most Travelled People, NomadMania, and Travel Century Club. The index’s rankings give equal weight to each club, and travellers must be registered with Most Travelled People or NomadMania to be considered.
The index also measures the number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites travellers visit, including both official and tentative lists, as well as national capitals visited and land and maritime borders crossed.
The ETF/ABS Magellan Travel Index will be published annually on Extraordinary Travel Festival’s website, as well as other partner platforms.
The first Magellan Travel Index has now been published, with separate quality and quantity rankings as well as an overall index.
The index was unveiled at the third annual 2024 Extraordinary Travel Festival in Bangkok last month. Around 55% of attendees this year have visited more than 100 countries.