If COVID and crowds weren’t considerations, travel expert Lauren Monitz would love to board a plane for Africa, Antarctica, or another big bucket list destination. But the Texas-based writer and social media strategist’s latest vacation was a modest road trip to the neighboring state of Oklahoma that cost less than $1,000.
By Charlene Oldham
“I personally feel a bit uncomfortable in crowds still, so I’m seeking out places I know won’t be packed and trying to find more off the grid, lesser known vacation spots,” said Monitz, who writes about travel at The Down Lo.
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She will be taking some domestic flights in the near future for work and family-related “oblication” trips, but is wary of unruly fellow travelers and cancelled flights.
“I’m preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. Personally, flying seems like more of a hassle than not lately, so I’m holding off on more long-haul trips,” said Monitz, who’s visited more than 35 countries to date.
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“The pandemic made people think outside of their traditional trips. Our survey found that domestic travel won big over foreign trips as the uncertainty over foreign destinations kept Americans closer to home,” said Daniel Durazo, the company’s U.S. director of marketing and communications. “Americans are eager to experience everything that the country has to offer, and that includes hotels in every price range and rental accommodations that bring them closer to the community they are visiting.”
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“Visiting family and friends has historically been the top reason for leisure travel. This was accentuated even more prior to the rollout of the vaccines, where for many months there was limited ability to safely see friends and loved ones,” said Tori Emerson Barnes, executive vice president for public affairs and policy at the U.S, Travel Association, a non-profit travel industry trade group.
A January report from Airbnb found taking trips to spend time with family and friends was the type of travel survey respondents missed most, with 51% saying they planned to visit immediate family first, 39% planning to see friends, and 33% vying to see extended family on their next trip. Once people were able, many rushed to reconnect with friends and family they may not have seen for months.
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Barnes said short-term rentals also experienced a surge in demand in the last 18 months and have fully recovered and even surpassed 2019 levels of demand, with occupancy reaching an all-time high of 70% in June 2021, 20% higher than June 2019. But experts say hotel demand is bouncing back as leisure travelers begin to adapt to pandemic travel and extend their travel goals beyond family visits.
“While many travelers preferred the ability to isolate their travel parties in vacation rentals, hotel demand is also strong,” Barnes said, adding that a recently released report from the hospitality analytics firm STR actually upgraded its 2021 hotel forecast for the second time in three months, citing a surge in demand even though business and group travel is still lagging behind pre-pandemic levels.
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Stricter pandemic protocols for cleaning have helped drive demand, according to Stephen Au, a travel consultant and contributor to the travel site Upgraded Points.
“I think people were skeptical of the cleanliness practices implemented by hotels, but this is changing quickly with new, standardized programs being pushed out by large hotel brands,” he said.
“While deals and discounts are top motivators for travelers, travel discounts were harder to come by in recent months with summer leisure demand at record levels and many travel organizations facing supply constraints in terms of rooms available, air routes, and labor,” she said.
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“A lot of travel credits issued during the pandemic were set to expire this year, so it’s no surprise that people are using them up — even for travel later this year or next year. After all, it’s better to use rewards for speculative travel than to let them expire,” said travel expert Holly Johnson, co-founder of the travel and finance site Club Thrifty.
Savings accounts fortified by stimulus checks and the forced frugality of the pandemic lockdown also helped fund trips, with 58.4% of survey respondents saying they used savings to pay for part of their trip and 18.4% taking advantage of tax refunds and stimulus cash. Like Monitz, they also kept travel spending modest, with 41.2% spending $1,000 or less on their last vacation. Industry experts expect demand to keep climbing as consumers gain the confidence to take the trips they dreamed of — and saved for — during lockdown.
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“This is a somewhat surprising result. I would’ve expected Europe or other international destinations to represent a higher percentage,” said travel consultant Au. “This is perhaps because the general population as a whole is still not comfortable with the idea of ‘post-pandemic travel’ and are therefore anxious about traveling too far.”
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