The summer travel season is underway following Memorial Day weekend, and is set to explode with colleges complete and secondary schools either done for the year or about to be as we reach the midway point of June.
With inflation running rampant, airfares up close to 40 percent from 2019 levels, gas prices setting national records all over the country, and hotel rates higher, travelers are looking for ways to trim back on vacation costs.
In fact, those concerns have replaced COVID-19 as summer travelers' biggest worry.
Sure, everybody wants to save a buck no matter what. But it appears that no matter what the cost is, tourists who have suffered from a pent-up demand for travel the last two-plus years because of the pandemic seem hell-bent on going back on vacation this summer.
So will budget suggestions and cutbacks even matter?
According to Allianz Partners USA's 14th annual Vacation Confidence Index, Americans will spend a record-breaking $194 billion on summer travel in 2022. That projection is 26 percent more than was spent last year, 229 percent more than 2020 - the first full summer of COVID-19 - and, more importantly, 91 percent higher than the summer of 2019, the pre-pandemic year the industry uses to compare its comeback with.
To be fair, a lot of that increase will have to do with rising inflation and rising costs of almost everything travel-related. But the sheer number of people intent on traveling this year will also contribute to the bottom line.
According to a survey by ValuePenguin, nearly three-quarters of Americans report they've made summer travel plans this year, a huge increase from 53 percent in 2021. Travelers reported they will take planning to spend more but take fewer trips.
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