Travel suppliers are putting an emphasis on bringing domestic inventory to agents as the recovery from the coronavirus will start with more local trips than regional or international.
That's according to a new survey by our sister publication, Travel Weekly.
And even that's going slow.
One respondent noted that although "car travel appears to be garnering the most interest right now" and "domestic travel inquiries are [outnumbering international] 5-to-1," only 17.1 percent of survey respondents said they had seen an increase in domestic reservations. Of those reporting rising bookings for the U.S., nearly 70 percent said the increase was less than 10 percent above their domestic bookings in the same period last year.
But the results seemed to confirm the thinking that post-coronavirus travel, at least in the short term, will heavily skew toward short, domestic trips rather than cruises, long-haul flights or any international bookings.
ID Travel Group COO Laurie Palumbo, whose wholesale travel company specializes in beach resorts but recently changed its name from Island Destinations to better reflect the current mood of traveling, recently unveiled a program that including luxury domestic reports such as Montana's Resort at Paws Up and Watch Hill in Rhode Island, TW reported.
"The big story here is that advisors were calling us saying, 'This is what we are getting demand for. Can you help us?'" Palumbo said. "Here the 'island destination' we are selling is Chatham Bars Inn [on Cape Cod] and Amangiri in the [Utah] desert."
Jack Ezon, founder and managing partner of Embark Beyond, said he expects a similar shift in business at his agency.
"As a retailer, Embark historically only sold less than eight percent domestically," he said. "We project 85 percent for the rest of the year, and [we're] focusing on a 'discover your homeland' campaign. We've spent sleepless nights [updating] our internal resources, whipping together seminars and tools to get everyone up to speed."
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