As our industry faces the challenge of recovering from the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the single most important key to long-term recovery is rebuilding consumer and corporate confidence in traveling again. We all know that rebuilding the travel industry will be a primary driver in rebuilding our global economy.
Travel Again has developed a 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 first edition focuses on U.S. travelers. We will report out on the index monthly and will eventually expand to include other countries as well.
Predictably, the first Index revealed overall traveler confidence is low, causing significant uncertainty about future traveling for both business and leisure travelers. Business traveler confidence is marginally higher than leisure traveler confidence overall (2.97 vs. 2.57), however the percentage of leisure travelers that are fully “ready to travel” is significantly lower (8.8% vs. 19.9%).
More leisure travelers have made future reservations than business travelers (24.3% vs. 15.3%), likely a result of draconian cutbacks in business travel budgets for the remainder of 2020. Willingness to travel domestically is almost double that of international travel for business travelers (53.4% vs. 30.5%) and is more than double for leisure travelers (55.2% vs. 27.2%).
As traveler confidence is a leading indicator for future travel volumes as well as overall economic health, it is imperative that we unite as an industry and make all recovery decisions through the lens of increasing traveler confidence.
These index results are the baseline for future benchmarking of business and leisure traveler confidence. Sign up to Join Travel Again to receive the full report in your inbox every month.