Americans Indicate Pandemic Less Likely to Affect Upcoming Travel Plans

According to the latest chapter in a travel-sentiment tracking study being conducted by Longwoods International, a tourism-focused market research consultancy, the pandemic is becoming less of a factor in Americans’ upcoming travel plans.

Now, in the study's twelfth week, 47 percent of U.S. travelers surveyed said that the COVID-19 pandemic will “greatly impact” their getaway plans over the next six months—substantially less than that number’s peak percentage of 67 percent observed on April 1, and its lowest since mid-March 2020.

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71 percent of respondents indicated that they have travel planned within the coming six-month period, a ratio that has remained fairly constant since the Longwoods study began in mid-March, although down from its peak of 87 percent, reported on March 11, just before the full impact of the pandemic became widely apparent.

Other factors that respondents cited as affecting their travel decisions over the next six months included concerns about the current economy, with 22 percent saying that this would greatly impact their planning and another 20 percent admitting that it would have a large impact. Another element would be the actual costs of transportation to reach one’s destination, with 17 percent of those surveyed pointing to this as a factor that would greatly impact and a further 19 percent saying it would largely impact their decision-making.

Other confidence indicators also appear to be on the rise, if only mildly. 40 percent of respondents said they would support opening up their communities to visitors, up from 31 percent who said the same two weeks ago. And, 43 percent said that they would now feel safe venturing outside of their own communities, an increase from the 35 percent that answered the same two weeks prior.

At present, 37 percent of those surveyed said they would feel safe dining in local restaurants and shopping at retail stores within their own communities, compared with 38 percent one week ago and 31 percent the week previous to that.

“The data shows slow but steady progress in a return to normalcy for future travel in the U.S.,” said Amir Eylon, President and CEO of Longwoods International. “But, we still have a long way to go for the American tourism industry to regain its footing both in sales and employment.”

Insights firm Miles Partnership supported this Longwoods survey, which was fielded on May 27, 2020, using a randomly-drawn national sample of 1,000 U.S. adult consumers, ages eighteen or over. Quotas for age, gender and region were applied to match with Census targets, rendering the survey representative of the U. S. population as a whole.