Update on American Travel Trends & Sentiment—Week of May 10th

Despite the excitement driving the return to normalcy, travel marketers would be wise to factor in the more lasting effects of the pandemic on travelers’ attitudes, and thus consequent behaviors. Many travelers report that the pandemic has changed them, leaving them more budget and safety conscious, and generally more on their guard. Even with the growing selection of cities as trip destinations, travelers report they are more into the outdoors than ever.

IMPORTANT: These findings are brought to you from our independent research, which is not sponsored, conducted or influenced by any advertising or marketing agency. Every week since March 15, 2020, Destination Analysts has surveyed 1,200+ American travelers about their thoughts, feelings, perceptions and behaviors surrounding travel—specifically in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic—and explored a variety of topics. The key findings presented below represent data collected May 6th-8th.

Key Findings to Know:

Vaccination continues: 57% of American travelers are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and a record 72.1% say they have or intend to be vaccinated. With the approval of vaccines for ages 12-15 announced last week, over half will have their children take a vaccine (53.5%, up 4 percentage points from last week).

Coronavirus anxiety—both from the health and financial perspectives—remains lower than any other period during the pandemic. In fact, the proportion of Americans now unconcerned reached record-highs. Meanwhile, pessimism about the pandemic’s course in the U.S. reached a record-low (10.9%).

The returning belief in travel’s safety remains strong. Three-quarters of American travelers have confidence they can travel safely right now, and a record-high 40.5% say they will NOT be avoiding any travel until the pandemic is over. Half of American travelers say they won’t feel guilty traveling right now, either.

Over 70% of American travelers are highly excited by the prospect of near-term travel and highly open to travel inspiration. More than three-quarters of American travelers say their state-of-mind around travel is “READY.” Nearly 35% of American travelers researched travel ideas online in the last week, a pandemic-record.

Over 90% of American travelers have trip plans right now, and plan to take 3.0 leisure trips this year, on average. More than 75% will take a trip within the next 3 months.

Consumer expectations about travel prices may have started to catch up with the reality of the demand. The proportion who believe travel prices will be low this summer declined, and is now outweighed by the proportion who feel this will not be the case.

Despite excitement for a return to normalcy, travel marketers would be wise to factor in the more lasting effects of the pandemic on travelers’ attitudes, and thus consequent behaviors. Many travelers report that the pandemic has changed them, leaving them more budget and safety conscious, and generally more on their guard. Compared to their pre-pandemic selves, three-quarters say they are now more safety conscious, 45 percent feel they are now more budget conscious, and fully 58% say they have an elevated concern that “something could go wrong” on their upcoming trips.

Travelers say the pandemic has changed them in other ways, including being much more interested now in outdoor activities and being close to nature. Careful trip planning will likely be more important to travelers in the post-pandemic world, with nearly 40% now more into this behavior. As was realized early on, the pandemic has most challenged growing customer bases for cruises, as well as amusement parks and cities. Of the activities we tested, traveler interest in cruising has taken a significant overall decline (33.9%). The results are less dramatic for amusement parks and cities, but overall about as many travelers say they have lost interest in these experiences as have gained interest in them as a result of the pandemic.

The pandemic has also disrupted trust in travel information, although fortunately American travelers are more likely to say the pandemic has left them more trusting in information sources available to them (38.1%) than less trusting (23.8%).

In good news for the meetings and convention industry, avoidance of these events reached a record-low (53.2%).

Local support of tourism keeps growing, as well. The proportion who don’t want travelers in their community remains under 40%. Anticipated happiness of seeing a travel ad about their community rose again, this time to 56.8%, the highest level recorded in the pandemic.

Follow us on social for infographics of these and other key findings. Need assets for a presentation or something else? Find all the presentation decks from our ongoing traveler research here—new decks posted each Tuesday afternoon. And please join us every Tuesday at 11:00am EST for a live presentation of the latest insights into traveler perceptions and behaviors.

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