The pandemic has been long and draining, and everyone wants to get away — sometimes, the farther the better. This year, thanks to the growing number of vaccinations being doled out, that might actually be possible.
AAA cites a Destination Analysts survey showing that 60% of Americans will be going on vacation sometime in the next three months — though spring break travel isn’t expected to be very busy.
“As we’re passing the one-year anniversary of when this all happened, and the weather is getting better and more people are starting to get vaccinated — it’s actual feeling more hopeful that it’s possible to take trips more safely and to more places now,” said Alice Jong, a research analyst with Phocuswright, a travel industry research group.
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“It’s going to be even higher demand this summer, just because we’ve progressed with the vaccine and things are more open,” Jong said. “Some international destinations are opening up to the U.S. but are still quite limited.”
But, she said, more European destinations will be opening their borders to vaccinated Americans.
She anticipates Americans beginning to hit the roads — or the airports — as summer arrives in May and June.
Last year, the hottest travel destinations were usually homes you could rent out in places where you could isolate yourself or spend time outdoors. This year, she still thinks, those places will be in demand.
“Because there is that unbalanced timeline where some people will be [vaccinated] and some people won’t be; it’s not going to just be like an instant switch,” Jong said.
Instead, some of the places that were popular in spite of the crowds, will start to get busier again, but it’ll be a slow return to “the types of travel that they craved before.”
“It’ll be really exciting to see how the next couple of months start to change as vaccines accelerate,” she said.
