Is This The Year Of Renewed Travel?

March 24, 2021

The hospitality sector certainly hopes travel comes back with a vengeance, but travelers look like they will avenge the boredom of 2020 with more than a little caution and care. This winter, global marketing firm Simon-Kucher & Partners (SKP) surveyed more than 3,900 Americans and Europeans to gauge their travel readiness. Overall, 57% of those polled said they would start taking trips again in 2021, with the majority planning to travel during the second half of the year. Fourteen percent said they would travel only after significant worldwide levels of vaccination. Stateside, SKP found that just 7% of Americans planned to boost leisure travel spending in 2021; 54% of that small group indicated that they would likely opt for multiple shorter trips rather than one or two week-plus jaunts. SKP forecasts a 26% increase in U.S. domestic travel this year, and a 49% drop in foreign travel for Americans.³