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.

View Research Round-Up Here

Travel Sentiment Research

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.