Although airline travel has shrunk to a fraction of its former volume, new research indicates that Americans still want to get away on vacation this summer – they just don’t want to get as far away as they did before, and they’re not inclined to fly.
While the summer peak travel months are slipping away, there’s still plenty of time for a vacation before fall sets in, and a survey of more than 1,000 consumers by the website VacationRenter.com found that many of them have been actively looking for destination options closer to home than in previous years.
As a VacationRenter spokesperson put it, “Americans are tightening their search net when it comes to travel.”
Personal safety – mainly from the coronavirus – is a big factor in changing travel expectations, the survey found. And people feel a lot safer in cars than they do on other forms of transportation, perhaps explaining why they don’t want to go as far this year. The big advantage of cars: You can stay away from other people.
The survey found that 84 percent of the respondents declared they feel “extremely or moderately comfortable” traveling by car these days, while only 27 percent said the same about airline travel. On the negative side, their biggest concern was about traveling on a cruise ship, with 60 percent saying they would feel “not at all comfortable” with a seagoing vacation. (Major cruise lines have all suspended operations into the fall.)
“The average person who had traveled, or planned to travel, during the summer kept their vacation destination within four hours of home,” VacationRenter said. “These short-distance destinations are realistic for car travel and are likely more affordable, which may account for cars being the most popular mode of transportation to reach a vacation spot.”
Of those who traveled or planned to travel this summer, 66 percent were going by private car and another 10 percent in rental cars, the survey found, vs. just 18 percent by air.
When VacationRenter looked at its internal data during June on where customers were planning to travel, they learned that on average, vacationers expected to go no more than 385 miles from home, down almost 14 percent from the same time a year ago. (SF to LA is about 380 miles.)
The research found that plenty of would-be travelers are now looking favorably on an option they might not have considered previously – the so-called “staycation,” where they stay in or close to their home base, i.e., not traveling more than 50 miles away.
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Fully 70 percent of the survey respondents agreed that a staycation could be just as much or more fun than a longer trip, and 78 percent said they could find acceptable vacation opportunities within 50 miles of home.
A survey found vacationers much prefer driving and want to avoid cruise ships.
VacationRenterThose survey results are in line with a summer travel forecast from AAA, which predicted that from July through September, the total number of trips by Americans would be down by 15 percent from the same months last year – the first time summer travel plans have declined since the Great Recession in 2009.
“Americans will get out and explore this summer though they’re taking a ‘wait and see approach’ when it comes to booking and are likely to take more long-weekend getaways than extended vacations,” said Paula Twidale, AAA’s senior vice president of travel.
The preference for auto travel was even greater in AAA’s study, which said 97 percent of travelers list cars as their preferred transportation method – up from 87 percent on average over the past five years. While overall trip numbers are expected to drop 15 percent, AAA said, car travel is likely to show only a 3 percent decline, vs. a 74 percent plunge for air travel and an 86 percent drop for cruise, rail and bus trips.
Looking at destination search data from members who came to AAA for trip routing advice, “prominent cities that typically draw large crowds are not as popular. Orlando, FL dropped from the top searched city destination to number eight while Denver, CO made the biggest climb from number 10 to number one,” AAA said.
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Chris McGinnis is SFGATE's senior travel correspondent. You can reach him via email or follow him on Twitter or Facebook. Don't miss a shred of important travel news by signing up for his FREE weekly email updates!
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August 09, 2020 at 06:00PM
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Vacationers are still traveling – just not as far - SF Gate
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