Book now if you’re planning to travel during the holidays.
Reservations for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s are up because so many Americans are upbeat that the coronavirus will have run its course by fall — and more than a little desperate to get out of the house, a new survey shows.
Bookings for Thanksgiving, already the busiest travel weekend of the year, are up 38%, according to Guesty, a global, short-term rental property management platform. Reservations for the winter holidays have soared, too — 40%.
The spike reflects the spring and summer vacations that many travelers put on hold because of the pandemic, according to Omer Rabin, a managing director at Guesty.
“This could be one of the biggest years for holiday travel ever,” Rabin said. “We know people are saving up their vacation days now and starting to book travel for later in the year.”
Most of Guesty’s respondents, though, will be staying in the US, Rabin said. Many plan to spend their time in the Northeast — at ski resorts in Vermont and New Hampshire.
“Our data is showing an uptick in domestic travel bookings rather than international, which is no surprise considering the limited flight paths we are seeing at the moment.”
Virtuoso, a luxury travel agency network, is showing that its upscale clients are willing to travel internationally and to exotic locales.
The top destinations, according to Virtuoso:
- Grand Cayman
- Dubai
- Saint Martin (Virtuoso believes this is actually St. Barths, it’s just the commercial flight path ends in Saint Martin)
- Tanzania
- Los Angeles
- Maui, Hawaii
- Nairobi, Kenya
- Montego Bay, Jamaica
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Puerto Vallarta, Mexico