Americans are Ready to Travel

According to our latest national survey, American leisure travel expectations hit a new high in October.  While travel expectations have been on a positive, stable trajectory for years now, our Fall The State of the American Traveler™ national tracking survey recorded a strong upward surge in expectations for leisure travel in the upcoming year.  This optimism is shown by a record 37.4 percent of Americans saying they expect to travel more for leisure in the next year, up from 32.2 percent just 3 months earlier. Leisure travel spending expectations are also similarly high, signaling that prospects for continued growth in this segment are strong.

The table below shows the proportion of American leisure travelers who (in the next 12 months) expect to travel more, less and the same as they did in the most recent 12-month period.  The results show strong current traveler optimism.

 

Much of this current optimism is being generated by younger travelers.  The charts below show the most recent survey’s data broken out by generation.  As is typically the case, younger travelers show the highest propensities to be planning more travel in the upcoming 12 months.  Nearly two thirds (57.9%) of Millennials currently say they will travel more in the next 12 months.  By comparison, only one quarter of Baby Boomers (26.8%) are planning to bump up the number of trips they will take in the next year.  For Millennials, these are big changes from what was seen this summer.  In our July survey, only 51.4 percent of Millennials said they were planning to take more trips.  The older generations have shown much smaller growth rates between the two most recent survey waves.  It seems clear that growth leisure travel volume in 2017 may depend on the younger generation’s ability to live out these high expectations.

Travel Optimism: by Generation
(Percent of Americans by generation expecting to travel more in the next 12 months)

 

For more detail, download the latest summary report here.