take the change
The desire to escape is only stronger for American travelers than the rising cost of fuel and fears (so far) of another boom in the form of the coronavirus.
Jason Clampet
US booking sites including Vrbo, Hopper and KAYAK are seeing a surge in demand for leisure travel in the spring and summer as COVID-19 restrictions ease and travelers seem to be ignoring the extra costs of plane tickets and road trips due to higher fuel prices.
“We are seeing strong booking activity for spring break and a very strong start of summer,” said Jamie Lin, Vice President of Research at AirDNA, which tracks the daily performance of more than 10 million properties at Airbnb and Vrbo rentals.
Oil jumped more than $100 a barrel as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rattled global markets. But US airlines, including Delta Air Lines, United Airlines Holdings and American Airlines, this week posted a strong rebound in travel demand after the sudden reversal caused by the Omicron coronavirus variant.
AirDNA data said the pace of bookings for travel in the Northern Hemisphere spring is 49% higher than this time last year, and 26% higher than in 2019 before the pandemic.
“The rush to book summer vacation homes in 2022 has accelerated,” Frbow said in a statement released earlier this month. The rental booking platform reports that the demand for real estate has already exceeded last summer by 15%.
“When reviewing the booking data, it was clear that Omicron was a greater concern for travelers from higher fuel costs,” said Dakota Smith, chief strategy officer at Hopper, a travel booking app.
The app, which is popular with younger travelers, has seen a 50% increase in travel bookings since the last quarter of 2021.
Airlines are counting on strong demand to deal with rising fuel costs. Some airlines intend to pass the majority of this increase on to customers.
“With gas prices at record levels, jet fuel prices may not be delayed much…the summer travel season could be expensive,” said Paul Jacobs, general manager and vice president of KAYAK North America. Flight prices rose 17% last week compared to the same week in 2019, according to KAYAK.
Huber-Smith said higher fuel costs will have less impact on domestic and short-haul flights, and evidence suggests that the pandemic-era preference of American travelers for those flights persists, and may remain while the war in Ukraine continues. .
Huber said US bookings to Europe have fallen from 21% of Huber’s international bookings to 15% since February 12, with international bookings shifting toward Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Those locations now account for 61% of Hopper’s international bookings, according to Smith. Europe accounted for nearly 30% of Hopper’s international bookings in 2019.
According to AirDNA, business travel and travel to urban locations have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
Investors will also get another perspective on the leisure travel revival when Carnival Corp reports earnings on Tuesday. On average, Carnival is expected to cause a loss of $1.21 per share, while revenue will soar to more than $2 billion, according to data from Refinitiv.
(Reporting by Doinsola Oladipo; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
This article was written by Doyinsola Oladipo of Reuters and is legally licensed through the Industry Dive Content Marketplace. Please direct all licensing questions to [email protected].
