by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 2:11 PM ET, Tue May 18, 2021
We're beginning to see the blue sky after all this rain the past year. We have three incredible vaccines that save lives; jobs that were lost during the pandemic have begun to be in high demand; tourism is returning to various destinations; air travel is reaching record highs, and the new CDC guidance says that vaccinated Americans can now ditch their masks.
But how is all of this news affecting consumer spending? The question of whether people are just thinking about travel versus actually booking it and spending money on it is a big one, but it's also about how travelers think about traveling, too.
Personal Capital's Financial Impact of COVID-19 report shows us some good signs of a slow recovery. In a poll, they found that 51 percent of Americans are looking forward to traveling and vacationing again.
Before March 2020, the average individual spent about 27 percent of their money on travel and restaurants. That number dropped to 15 percent during the rest of the year.
Vacations and restaurants are recovering, though, and the average individual is now spending around 17.4 percent in these categories.
While these numbers are still small, there's a clear sense of optimism surrounding travel, but consumers have generally spent less on a lot of things throughout the pandemic, from clothes to hair salons, and this will also likely impact how people think about travel, too.
Around 37 percent of respondents said they'd continue to travel less frequently in order to save money for retirement or to pay off things like mortgages and student loans.
While some lifelong travelers are spending record amounts of money purchasing world cruises this year, others will choose to take it slowly. When they do decide to travel, it will be more meaningful because they will have waited to take them. This doesn't necessarily mean that they will be cheaper trips, either; they could be bucket list destinations that they've been dreaming of for years, but now finally have the financial know-how to plan and save for them.
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