by Donald Wood
Last updated: 2:40 PM ET, Fri September 17, 2021
After a devastating winter holiday period in 2020, the travel industry is already showing major signs of a bounce-back in terms of advance bookings for Christmas vacations.
According to CNBC.com, many hotels are already fully booked for the 2021 holiday season despite a rising number of coronavirus cases associated with the Delta variant. The travel industry is crediting vaccines for the increased confidence in tourists to book in advance.
"As soon as people got vaccinated - boom! - they were booking their year-end activities," Milepro.com founder Tim White told CNBC. "The spring brought a huge spike in holiday bookings at major hotel chains like Hilton and Marriott."
Travelers are also searching for more winter travel options, as internet search queries for December travel were five times higher in August than the previous year, with most U.S. tourists looking for domestic options this winter.
As for where Americans are looking to travel this winter for the holidays, Hawaii tops the list compiled by Similarweb, followed by California, North Carolina's Outer Banks, the Caribbean and other warm-weather destinations.
Twiddy & Company CEO Ross Twiddy said reservations in August were up 165 percent for the Christmas and New Year periods compared to 2017-2019 averages. The increased number of bookings has also caused prices to climb.
Priceline officials told CNBC that average daily hotel rates have increased 14 percent compared with the 2019 holiday season and experts believe the increased demand will cause prices to continue to climb.
Many hotels and resorts seeing a spike in winter holiday travel for 2021 are also seeing a spike in advanced bookings for early 2022 and beyond.
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