Travel Research Round-Up for this Week
What travelers are thinking, doing and needing changes constantly. To help you make sense of the research findings each week, the Ohio Travel Associations provides this one-page summary.
Travel Sentiment Research
TRAVELERS RESPOND TO SUMMER ACTIVITIES; COVID-19 AND THE VACCINE STILL INFLUENCES WHEN TRAVELERS WILL START TRAVELING
Key findings from Longwoods International Apr. 14-19:
- 87% of respondents said they have travel plans in the next six months.
- Some activities travelers plan to participate in during summer include:
- 57% said dine at a restaurant.
- 53% said go to relax or relocate at an ocean, lake, or river.
- 32% said participate in outdoor activities or adventures.
- 23% said visit an amusement park, theme park, or water park.
- 22% said visit a museum, art gallery, or other arts/cultural institution.
- COVID-19 still influences the decisions to travel in the next six months with 35% of respondents say it greatly impacts their decision and 13% saying it has no impact at all.
- As for perceptions of safety:
- 21% said they strongly support opening their community to visitors, 7% strongly disagree.
- 20% feel very safe traveling outside their community, 5% feeling very unsafe.
- 24% feel very safe dining at a restaurant and shopping at retail stores, 7% feel very unsafe.
- The vaccine also continues to impact when travelers plan to travel.
- 33% said they will wait until they receive the vaccine to travel.
- 34% said the vaccine has no impact on their travel plans.
- 20% are waiting to travel until majority of people are vaccinated at the destination of interest.
- 20% will wait to travel until majority of Americans are vaccinated.
- 19% will wait to travel until their friends and family are vaccinated.
- 17% will wait to travel until majority of their community is vaccinated.
MANY ARE OPEN TO TRAVEL INSPIRATION NOW; ROAD TRIPS HAVE GROWN DURING THE PANDEMIC
Key findings from Destination Analysts fielded Apr. 16-18:
- This week, 71.9% of American travelers say they are in a ready-to-travel mindset compared to 28.1% who are not ready to travel.
- 63.4% are highly open to travel inspiration right now.
- Three-quarters of American travelers did some travel planning and dreaming in the past week, with 16.4% actually making a reservation or booking.
- 51.8% booked a hotel room.
- 32% bought airline tickets.
- 24.1% made rental car reservations.
- 18.3% booked a home sharing service, like Airbnb.
- 15.5% bought amusement park tickets.
- 14.4% bought museum or attraction tickets.
- 13.7% bought tickets to a sporting event.
- More than 75% of respondents will take at least one trip in the next three months.
- With more inspiration to travel right now, American travelers are showing a receptiveness to travel messing in a variety of channels.
- Highlights from graph:
- Social media is most common for younger travelers.
- TikTok is growing as a channel for travel influence with nearly a quarter of younger travelers saying it is ideal place to reach them.
- Older travelers remain largely committed to Facebook.
- Search engine marketing remains key for travel marketing, particularly to reach older travelers.
- An important proportion of travelers are looking to print resources like travel and lifestyle magazines.
- Americans have shown an increase in happiness when seeing their own communities advertised for tourism.
- 50.4% said they would feel happy or very happy if they saw an ad promoting the area they live.
- 17.4% said they would feel unhappy or very unhappy if they saw an ad promoting the area they live.
- 39.5% said they aren’t ready for tourism in their community yet.
- Two-thirds of Americans took a road trip during the pandemic.
- The average number of road trips taken by Americans during the pandemic was 2.5.
- 51% say their pandemic road trips have made travel by car more appealing.
- 62% of pandemic road-trippers agree their experience has reminded them of how fun a road trip can be.
- Business travel continues to recover slowly.
- 56% of those employed by companies in which there is business travel say it has resumed, up from 48% from the week of March 7.
- 47% of business travelers feel the COVID-19 pandemic will change the way their employer does business travel.
- 52% of business travels said they hope not to travel as much as they did for work before the pandemic.