- Chris Schutte
Majority of Travelers Report Losing Confidence in Travel Due to COVID Variants
New Survey: Traveler Confidence Index Drops for Both Business
& Leisure Travelers After Steady Recovery Over The Past Year
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Colleen Gallagher
315.447.2331
August 12, 2021 (Washington, DC) – COVID-19 variants, such as the Delta variant, are having a dramatic impact on traveler confidence, even more-so on business travelers than leisure travelers, according to the latest monthly Traveler Confidence Index developed by Travel Again. On the leisure side, 61% of travelers feel at least somewhat less confident about traveling due to the prevalence of COVID variants with 1 in 20 saying the variants cause them to have no confidence in traveling. For business travelers, 65% feel at least somewhat less confident about traveling due to the prevalence of COVID variants and the number who say the COVID variants cause them to have no confidence in traveling jumps to nearly 1 in 10.
“Since the launch of Travel Again last fall, we’ve talked about the importance of putting infrastructure in place to protect travelers and the travel industry not just as we recover from COVID-19, but in a way that ensures we are ready for the future health threats that will someday come as well,” said Travel Again Co-Founder Mike McCormick. “As new variants keep coming at us, we are already seeing this play out -- and if we don’t act now to address the damage it is causing to traveler confidence, it will cause irreparable damage for future travel projections.”
The July survey also revealed that business travelers are getting vaccinated at a significantly higher rate. Currently, 87% of business travelers have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and only 7% report that they do not plan to get the vaccination. Conversely, only 62% of leisure travelers have received at least one dose of the vaccine while 17% say they have no plans of getting vaccinated.
Additional Key Findings
Business travelers who have made future reservations dropped slightly this month from 33% to 28% while leisure travelers with future bookings remained the same at 56%.
The most important confidence building elements for business travelers include vaccinations for travel providers, vaccinations for yourself and mandatory masks. On the leisure side, there was frequent cleaning, empty middle seats, mandatory masks and vaccinations for yourself.
Traveler Confidence Index: The confidence index dropped across the board following a steady recovery over the last year. On the leisure side it fell from 3.77 in June to 3.55 in July, its lowest level since April. The number of leisure travelers fully ready to travel now dropped by more than 10% from 37.3% to 26.5%. The business Index dropped from 3.66 last month to 3.48 today with the number expressing they are fully ready to travel now falling from 33.6% to 27.4%.
Travel Again has developed the Traveler Confidence Index assessing confidence levels in both the business and leisure traveler to guide the prioritization of future travel industry initiatives by measuring the impact on traveler confidence. This 10th edition focuses on U.S. travelers and we will continue reporting out on the index monthly, and will ultimately expand to include other countries as well.
About Travel Again: Travel Again unites the global travel industry to restore consumer and corporate confidence in traveling and to encourage responsible government policy. Visit travelagainproject.org for more information. Join Travel Again and support the global recovery of the travel industry. Follow Travel Again on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.