Its Q1 Travel Recovery Trend Report identifies trends in consumer behavior as the travel and tourism industry is on the road to recovery.
Expressions such as “pandemic,” “COVID-19,” “travel bubble” became a part of our vocabulary as travel and tourism struggle to cope with, and mitigate the impact of a virus that brought activity to a halt.
By tapping into more than 300 petabytes of Expedia Group traveler intent and demand data (One petabyte holds 1024 terabytes or 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes), Expedia shares what it calls a snapshot of the latest quarterly trends we are seeing through its exclusive access to Expedia Group first-party data and custom research. The Travel Recovery Trend Report starts with five trends statements.
—Global Vaccine Rollouts Spur the Return of Travel: After a turbulent year for the travel industry in 2020, the start of 2021 saw travel turn a corner with monthly search volumes showing strong growth throughout Q1. The increase in searches and traveler demand is linked with growing momentum for the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and travel guidelines.
—Global Search Window Remains Short: Continuing a trend seen throughout much of last year, the majority of global Q1 2021 searches fell within the 0 to 21 days search window, as uncertainty around global travel saw travelers opt for more opportunistic, short-term trips, often close to home. This trend seems to be strengthening for domestic trips, while longer search windows for international trips appear to be growing.
—Making Up for Lost Time with Longer Trips: To make up for lost time, travelers are finally using their full vacation days and taking advantage of more flexible working conditions with “flexcations” – a longer stay mixing work and play. This is resulting in longer trips, as well as a strong increase in vacation rental demand quarter-over-quarter. Travelers are booking more stays of at least seven nights at Vrbo vacation homes this summer, exceeding pre-pandemic levels.
—Domestic Travel Here for the Foreseeable Future: Even with COVID-19 vaccine distribution ramping up, many travelers are continuing to take trips closer to home – opting for beach and city destinations – and choosing car travel as their preferred mode of transportation. As travelers look ahead to late spring and summer travel, road trips will continue to eclipse air travel and other transportation methods.
—Health & Hygiene Expectations Continue to Evolve: Since the start of the pandemic, health and hygiene-related factors have grown in importance for travelers. However, as consumer confidence continues to grow, there are signs that travelers are prioritizing more traditional decision-making drivers, such as cost and convenience.
