Consumer Insights

In May, 42.% of Americans traveled, 2 percentage points higher than February 2020, before the pandemic hit. The U.S. summer vacation was off to a very promising start.

The U.S. travel rate jumped to 35.3% in March, marking the biggest two-month increase since travel hit rock bottom in April 2020. With over half of American adults already vaccinated, the summer vacation peak is looking very promising for the travel industry.

Who traveled during the pandemic year? How did they book travel? Where did they stay? How did they get to their destinations? We answer these questions about U.S. travelers by analyzing our aggregated monthly travel tracker survey of 10,000 Americans.

U.S. travel rate dipped to 21% in January, marking the second worst month since the pandemic started. But Americans are hopeful for a better 2021 ahead and travel companies need to be prepared.

The coronavirus has hit Europe hard, but the region will continue to receive accolades as the largest destination and largest source market for many years to come. Let's brush up on our understanding of European travelers, and see how COVID-19 has impacted their travel patterns.

The dark winter for the U.S. travel industry continued in December. Travel rate dipped to 28%, only three percentage points higher than March. However, the promise of wider-spread vaccinations and a new President seems to give the Americans confidence to travel again in 2021.

In November, 32% of Americans traveled, wiping out all the slow gains since May. With raging new COVID cases across the country, this bleak travel number might actually be too high to help control the virus spread.

In October, 37.8% of Americans traveled, marking the smallest monthly increase since reaching the low point in April. Will the changing course of the pandemic, with a new President and possible vaccine, give the U.S. travel industry a much-needed boost in the coming months?

Labor Day weekend didn’t provide a much-needed boost for the U.S travel sector. In September, 37% of Americans traveled, barely one percentage point higher than in August. The path of travel recovery ahead might be even rockier with summer vacation officially behind us.

Summer was near the end and while still high, the number of new COVID cases declined substantially from the peak of July. Yet, the travel rate did not go up along this track. In August, 36% of Americans traveled, only one percentage point higher than in July.

Despite rising new COVID cases, 35% of Americans traveled in July. But most are not taking their typical summer vacations.

With 33% of Americans taking at least one trip, June travel tells a promising story of the reopening. But it might be a very short-lived promise.