With the large-scale spread of the Omicron variant across the globe, many countries are moving toward treating COVID-19 as endemic, and consequently easing their border rules and domestic COVID-19 restrictions. Whether or not they're ready to venture outside of the U.S. just yet, Americans seem increasingly eager to travel again in the current climate.
Leading comparison site Finder.com is conducting an ongoing survey of Internet users from a dozen countries around the globe (nearly 260,000 thus far) to gauge whether the world is ready to travel again. In the United States, travel planning is shown to be on the rise, with 26 percent of Americans surveyed saying they plan to travel sometime between March and May.
That figure has increased 23 percent from just a few months ago, and up from 17 percent last month. As a result, Finder's latest Travel Index results indicate that travel planning has jumped by 48 percent year-over-year.
Eighteen percent of U.S. participants said they plan on traveling domestically within the next three months, which was up from the 14 percent who answered the same in February.
International travel is bouncing back less rapidly, with just 10 percent of Americans saying they plan to venture abroad. However, it's still a notable increase from the four percent who said the same at this time last year.
The study found that, worldwide, men are more likely to be traveling over the next three months than women, with 34 of men saying they plan to travel in comparison to less than 18 percent of women who said the same.
"The Omicron variant has understandably halted some travel plans over the holidays, but the year-on-year increase makes sense when we compare the situation then and now," Finder's global editor-at-large Angus Kidman said in a statement. "The United States was slowly overcoming the Omicron surge in early February, which was right around when the survey was conducted.
"It's likely that higher rates of vaccination coupled with months of delayed travel plans means people are ready to go this time around," he continued. "It's promising to see the increase in travel interest, suggesting that travel is slowly starting to recover."
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