NEW YORK — Zeta Global, a cloud-based marketing technology company, has released travel trends ahead of the second-consecutive holiday season during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Specifically, Zeta Pulse’s customer sentiment survey of approximately 1,000 people across the U.S. has uncovered trends surrounding holiday travel, hotel/motel bookings and air travel.
First, people are planning to stay closer to home for the holidays, with 53.6 per cent of travellers preferring to stay home, 30 per cent willing to travel longer distances and 16.4 per cent still undecided. Moreover, COVID-19 remains the top concern for 39.7 per cent of travellers, followed by pricing and availability (19.2 per cent) and vaccination requirements (10.3 per cent). For the second year, travelling by car is preferred, compared to air travel, cruise, bus and train.
Next, hotel and motel bookings in 2021 are higher than 2020, but have still not reached pre-pandemic levels. Compared to 2019, hotel bookings this year have only decreased 31 per cent during August to October for November and December check-ins. Furthermore, the survey revealed that 48 per cent travellers prefer to stay in hotels rather than with friends or family (24.5 per cent) or at private rentals (8.2 per cent). In hotels, pet-friendly accommodations is critical as response to pet adoption and sales surge.
Finally, air travel in 2021 has increased 94 per cent compared to 2020, but it’s still down 61 per cent compared to 2019. International bookings for both air and hotels have also started to surge, but bookings are still down roughly 60 per cent compared to 2019. However, Zeta anticipates a surge in air travel in 2022.
