Half of American Travelers May Be Staying Home for the Holidays

According to the most recent Longwoods International tracking study of American travelers, half of American travelers are currently planning to stay home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or New Year’s Eve. A similar percentage reported that COVID-19 will greatly impact their travel decisions in the next six months. 

However, four in ten American travelers are planning a holiday road trip, while less than a quarter intend to fly. Travelers’ plans for holiday trips are equally split between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

“With the number of new COVID cases rising in more than half the states, we can expect further disruption in family holiday travel plans,” said Amir Eylon, President & CEO of Longwoods International. “The number of actual holiday travelers in 2020 will likely be driven by the perceived safety and/or risk of taking such trips during the holiday period.”

According to the most recent survey, over a third of American travelers support opening up their local communities to visitors, a slight decline in support in the past month. Conversely, local consumer confidence has remained stable with about half of travelers feeling safe shopping in local stores and eating in local restaurants.

The survey, supported by Miles Partnership, was fielded October 7, 2020, using a national sample randomly drawn from a consumer panel of 1,000 adults, ages 18 and over. Quotas were used to match Census targets for age, gender, and region to make the survey representative of the U. S. population.