Air and hotel bookings in the United States for late
November – the Thanksgiving holiday period - are down dramatically compared to
2019 levels, dropping 57% for air and 42% for hotel, according to data from
Sojern.
In addition to changes in travel volume, COVID-19 has contributed to shifts in destination preference, says Sojern’s chief solutions officer, Kurt Weinsheimer.
During a webinar Thursday hosted by McKinsey in partnership
with Sojern, Weinsheimer shared data comparing the top 10 destinations for
flight and hotel searches for the Thanksgiving period from last year versus
this year.
New York – the number one market for both flights and hotels
last Thanksgiving period and in most recent years - dropped to sixth for
flights and ninth for hotels. San Francisco dropped out of the top 10 for
flights and from sixth to tenth for hotels, while Chicago went from second for
flights last year to seventh this year.
Markets that have gained interest this year include Orlando,
Miami and Las Vegas.
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“We are seeing this big shift
from urban to non-urban,” Weinsheimer says.
“These are pretty dramatic
moves as people are potentially also not going home for Thanksgiving, but they
are wanting to go somewhere. As a result you are seeing an increase in vacation
destinations.”
Another noticeable change in consumer behavior for
Thanksgiving is a much shorter booking window, with an 18 percentage point
increase in the number of trips booked in the 60 days prior to Thanksgiving
compared to 2019.
“The idea that we’re still talking about what travel for Thanksgiving
might look like in almost mid-November just tells you how incredibly dynamic the
market is right now,” Weinsheimer says.
And with many students doing school online and employees
having vacation days they still need to use, data shows travelers are also
planning to stay at their destinations longer – with 70% of flights being
booked for more than four days, compared to just 62% of trips in 2019.
Weinsheimer says hotels are adding incentives to attract these travelers, such
as getting the fifth night of a stay for free, which may allow them to capture
more ancillary revenue from those guests.
While the recent news of
a vaccine created what McKinsey partner Vik Krishnan calls a “shot of adrenalin”
for consumer confidence and travel interest, both he and Weinsheimer say it is
still difficult to know what the trends will look like in the first quarter of
2021.
“Bookings windows and search windows are so short right now
that it’s still looking pretty tight in Q1,” Weinsheimer says.
“I think that it’s going to be very much vaccine-driven but also
weather-driven. As we move into later in the spring, we’ll see a better uptick
whether there’s broad vaccine activity or not. The more people can be outdoors,
the more they will travel in the short-term.”
Based on the trends from China, Krishnan says a return to
pre-COVID patterns has less to do with a vaccine and more to do with what
experiences are available to consumers.
“While they [Chinese travelers] skewed early on to less dense,
more outdoor destinations, that preference has now been pivoting back to more
urban locations as more restaurants are open, museums and other activities are
open,” Krishnan says.
“All of that is contingent on case counts, it’s contingent
on what local governments and regulators do in terms of travel restrictions and
not just on air travel but also restaurants, hotels and other forms of
recreation. That is almost the biggest driver.”